LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 
HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  OFAMERICA. 


Zruj*tfS.BHM  Jr-nma  nut.  ir  B'eij  I  C* 


PulUs'iti  by  Jcc  £   Bichelder 
KKW  TOHK 


SKETCH  OF  THE  LIFE 


COMPILED  IN  MOST  PART 

FROM    THE 

HISTORY  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  AND  THE  OVERTHROW  OF  SLAVERY. 

PUBLISHED   BY   MESSES.   CLARK   AND   CO.,   CHICAGO. 


BY 


N.    A.  R  NOLI) 


JOHN    B.    BACHELDER,     PUBLISHER, 

59  BEEKMAN  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 
1809. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S6S,  by 

JOHN  B.  BACHELDEtt, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District   Court  of   the   United  States   for  the  Southern 
District  of  New  York. 


ALVOED,    PRINTER. 


PUBLISHER'S    PREFACE. 


TIME  out  of  mind,  words  prefatory  have  been  considered 
indispensable  to  the  successful  publication  of  a  book.  This 
sketch  of  the  LIFE  and  DEATH  of  ABEAHAM  LINCOLN  is  in- 
tended as  an  accompaniment  to  the  Historical  Painting  which 
has  rescued  from  oblivion,  and,  with  almost  perfect  fidelity, 
transmitted  to  futurity,  "THE  LAST  HOUKS  OF  LINCOLN."  In 
its  preparation  has  been  invoked  the  aid  of  one  who  in  life 
was  near  the  heart  of  MR.  LINCOLN,  and  at  death  was  a 
witness  to  that  last  sad  scene,  so  accurately  delineated  by 
the  painter's  art — the  Hon.  ISAAC  N.  ARNOLD.  His  intimate 
and  social  relations  with  MR.  LINCOLN,  his  unbounded  admira- 
tion of  the  goodness  and  sincerity  of  the  Great  Emancipator, 
renders  this  invocation  eminently  appropriate.  This  sketch 
contains  subject-matter  never  before  made  public,  presented 
in  the  full  dress  of  the  author's  happiest  style. 

In  confident  reliance  upon  the  affection  of  the  people  for 
the  great  Apostle  of  Liberty — the  Martyr — who  in  his  blood 
wrote  his  belief  "  that  all  men  everywhere  should  be  free," 
this  sketch  is  submitted. 

JANUARY  1,  1869. 


CONTENTS 


SKETCH  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  -  -  9 

LINCOLN  ANCESTRY,   -                                                             V.  -  10 

BOYHOOD  OF  LINCOLN,        -  -  11 

YOUTHFUL  DUTIES  AND  AMUSEMENTS,     "*-  *  -  11 

EARLY  EDUCATION,     -  -  13 

ELECTED  CAPTAIN — BLACK  HAWK  WAR,  -  -  14 

KOMINATION  FOR  LEGISLATURE,  -  14 

MEMBER  OF  THE  LEGISLATURE,  -  15 

ADMITTED  TO  THE  BAR,     -  -  15 

PRACTICE  AT  THE  BAR,       -  -  15 

PROFESSIONAL  BEARING,     -  -  17 

RETIREMENT  FROM  THE  LEGISLATURE,      -  -  18 

ANTI-SLAVERY  PROCLIVITIES,     -  -  18 

MARRIAGE,  -  19 

MARY  TODD,  19 

CHILDREN,  -  -  19 

IN  CONGRESS,      -  -  20 

STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS,       -  -  20 

ABOLITION  OF  SLAVERY  AT  "WASHINGTON,  -  20 

SUCCESSOR  IN  CONGRESS — E.  D.  BAKER,  -  20 

BEGINNING  OF  THE  END  OF  SLAVERY,      -  -  20 

LINCOLN  IN  THE  KANSAS  STRUGGLE,  21 


O  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATE,       -  -  23 

EARLY  ACQUAINTANCE  OF  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS,  -  -23 

DOUGLAS  AS  A  DEBATER,  -  -  24 

DOUGLAS — LINCOLN — PERSONAL  DESCRIPTION,  -  -  25 

"                 "                "                        "             CONTINUED,       >.'-•'  -  25 

COOPER  INSTITUTE  ADDRESS,     -  -  27 

CHICAGO  CONVENTION — DOMINATION  TO  PRESIDENCY,     -  -  28 

POPULAR  VOTE — ELECTION,        -  -  28 

JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON,  -  29 

ARRIVAL  AT  WASHINGTON,  -  30 

RECEPTION,  -  30 

FIRST  INAUGURATION,                                                               -  -  31 

CIVIL  WAR,  -  31 

THIRTY-SEVENTH  CONGRESS,       -  -  32 

CALLING  OUT  TROOPS,  -  32 

REGULAR  SESSION  OF  CONGRESS,  DECEMBER,  1861,  -  -  33 

SLAVERY  LAWS  PASSED,     -  33 

EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION,  -  34 

OWEN  LOVEJOY,  -  34 

PROCLAMATION  ISSUED — JANUARY  1,  1863,  -  36 

GETTYSBURG — CONSECRATION,     -  39 

NEW  YEAR — 1864,      -  40 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL — NOMINATION  OP  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT,  -  -  41 

CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENT  ABOLISHING  SLAVERY,  -  42 

SECOND  INAUGURATION,       -  42 

VISIT  TO  ARMY  HEAD-QUARTERS — CITY  POINT,  -  44 

LINCOLN — GRANT — SHERMAN — PERSONAL  APPEARANCE  -  45 

UNION  TROOPS  ENTER  RICHMOND,    .-  46 

VISIT  TO  RICHMOND,   -  -  46 

RETURN  TO  WASHINGTON,  -  -  47 

REVIEW  OF  THE  ARMY,     -  -  47 

LAST  DAYS  OF  LINCOLN,    -  -  48 

ASSASSINATION,  49 

VISIT  TO  FORD'S  THEATER,                                            -  -  50 

JOHN  WILKES  BOOTH,  -  50 

DETAILS  OF  THE  ASSASSINATION,        -  51 

PRESIDENT  REMOVED  FROM  THE  THEATER,  -  51 


CONTENTS.  7 

PAGE 

DEATH  OF  LINCOLN,  -  -  51 

SCENES  IN  WASHINGTON,  -  52 

DEATH  OF  BOOTH,  -\ \  -  52 

ATTEMPTED  ASSASSINATION  OF  SECRETARY  SEWARD,  -  52 

RECEPTION  OF  MR.  LINCOLN'S  DEATH  THROUGHOUT  THE  COUNTRY,  53 

MEETING  OF  MEMBERS  OF  CONGRESS,  -_..-  -  54 

COMMITTEE  TO  ATTEND  THE  REMAINS  TO  ILLINOIS,  -  54 

FUNERAL  CEREMONIES,  -  -  54 
FUNERAL  CORTEGE. — WASHINGTON,  PHILADELPHIA,  NEW  JERSEY, 

NEW  YORK,  OHIO,  INDIANA,  ILLINOIS,  ,v:-; !-,  *  54 

PERSONAL  SKETCHES,  -  56 

FONDNESS  FOR  READING,  -  59 

LAST  SUNDAY  OF  HIS  LIFE,  -  -  59 

CONVERSATIONAL  POWERS,  -  60 

PUBLIC  SPEAKER,  -  60 

THE  WORDS  OF  LINCOLN,  -  61 
HABITUAL  MANNER  OF  TRANSACTING  BUSINESS  AT  THE  WHITE 

HOUSE,  -  65 

DESCRIPTION  OF  ROOMS  AND  FURNITURE,  -  66 

ETIQUETTE  OF  BUSINESS  RECEPTION,  -  67 

GREATNESS  OF  HIS  SERVICES,  69 

THE  MOST  DEMOCRATIC  PRESIDENT,  -  71 

RELIGIOUS  CREED,  -  -  71 

BELIEF  IN  A  GOD,  .vi?.-;-..-^?'^-  --rnA'. ,-'•>.  -  73 


SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE 


OF 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


MODEEN  history  furnishes  no  life  more  eventful  and 
important,  terminated  by  a  death  so  dramatic,  as  that  of 
the  Martyi  President.  Poetry  and  painting,  sculpture  and 
eloquence,  have  all  sought  to  illustrate  his  career,  but  the 
grand  epic  poem  of  his  life  has  yet  to  be  written.  We 
are  too  near  him  in  point  of  time,  fully  to  comprehend 
and  appreciate  his  greatness  and  the  vast  influence  he  is 
to  exe.rt  upon  the  world.  The  storms  which  marked  his 
tempestuous  political  career  have  not  yet  entirely  sub- 
sided, and  the  shock  of  his  fearfully  tragic  death  is  still 
felt;  but  as  the  dust  and  smoke  of  war  pass  away,  and 
the  mists  of  prejudice  which  filled  the  air  during  the 
great  conflict  clear  up,  his  character  will  stand  out  in 
bolder  relief  and  more  perfect  outline. 

The  ablest  and  most  sincere  apostle  of  liberty  the 
world  has  ever  seen  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  was  a 
Christian  statesman,  with  faith  in  God  and  man.  The  two 
men,  whose  pre-eminence  in  American  history  the  world 


10  SKETCH   OF    THE   LIFE    OF   LINCOLN. 

will  ever  recognize,  are  Washington  and  Lincoln.  The 
Republic  which  the  first  founded  and  the  latter  saved,  has 
already  crowned  them  as  models  for  her  children. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born,  February  12th,  1809,  in 
Hardin  County,  in  the  Slave  State  of  Kentucky.  * 

His  father  Thomas  and  his  grandfather  Abraham  were 
born  in  Rockingham  County,  Virginia.  His  ancestors  were 
from  Pennsylvania,  and  were  Friends  or  Quakers.  The 
grandfather  after  whom  he  was  named,  went  early  to 
Kentucky,  and  was  murdered  by  the  Indians,  while  at 
work  upon  his  farm.  The  early  and  fearful  conflicts  in 
the  dense  forests  of  Kentucky,  between  the  settlers  and 
the  Indians,  gave  to  a  portion  of  that  beautiful  State  the 
name  of  the  "dark  and  bloody  ground"  The  subject  of 
this  sketch  was  the  son,  the  grandson,  and  the  great 
grandson  of  a  pioneer.  His  ancestors  had  settled  on  the 
border,  first  in  Pennsylvania,  then  in  Virginia,  and  from 
thence  to  Kentucky.  His  grandfather  had  four  sons  and 
two  daughters.  Thomas  the  youngest  son  was  the  father 
of  Abraham,  and  his  life  was  a  struggle  with  poverty, 
a  hard-working  man  with  very  limited  education.  He 
could  barely  sign  his  name.  In  the  twenty-eighth  year 
of  his  age  he  married  Nancy  Hanks,  a  native  of  Virginia, 

*  When  the  compiler  of  the  Annals  of  Congress  asked  Mr.  Lincoln  to  furnish  him 
with  data  from  which  to  compile  a  sketch  of  his  life,  the  following  brief,  character- 
istic statement  was  given.  It  contrasts  very  strikingly  with  the  voluminous  biogra- 
phies furnished  by  some  small  great  men  who  have  been  in  Congress: — 

•'Born,  February  12th,   1809,  in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky. 

'  Education  defective. 

'  Profession,  a  Lawyer. 

'  Have  been  a  Captain  of  Volunteers  in  Black  Hawk  War. 

'  Postmaster  at  a  very  small  office. 

1  Four  times  a  member  of  the  Illinois  Legislature,  and  was  a  member  of  the  Lower 
House  of  Congress. 

"Yours,  &c., 

"A.  LINCOLN." 


LINCOLN    ANCESTRY.  11 

she  was  one  of  those  plain,  dignified  matrons,  possessing 
a  strong  physical  organization,  and  great  common  sense, 
with  deep  religious  feeling,  and  the  utmost  devotion  to 
her  family  and  children,  such  as  are  not  upusual  in  the 
early  settlements  of  our  country.  Reared  on  the  frontier, 
where  life  was  a  struggle,  she  could  use  the  rifle  and  the 
implements  of  agriculture  as  well  as  the  distaff  and  spin- 
ning-wheel. She  was  one  of  those  strong,  self-reliant 

O  C2 ' 

characters,  yet  gentle  in  manners,  often  found  in  the 
humbler  walks  of  life,  fitted  as  well  to  command  the  re- 
spect, as  the  love  of  all  to  whom  she  was  known.  Abra- 
ham had  a  brother  older,  and  a  sister  younger  than  him- 
self, but  both  died  many  years  before  he  reached  dis- 
tinction. 

In  1816,  when  he  was  only  eight  years  old,  the  family 
removed  to  Spenser  County,  Indiana.  The  first  tool  the  boy 
of  the  backwoods  learns  to  use  is  the  ax.  This,  young 
Lincoln,  strong  and  athletic  beyond  his  years,  had  learned 
to  handle  with  some  effect,  even  at  that  early  age,  and  he 
began  from  this  period  to  be  of  important  service  to  his 
parents  in  cutting  their  way  to,  and  building  up,  a  home 
in  the  forests.  *  . 

A  feat  with  the  rifle  soon  after  this  period  shows  that  he 
was  not  unaccustomed  to  its  use:  seeing  a  flock  of  wild 
turkeys  approaching,  the  lad  seized  his  father's  rifle  and 
succeeded  in  shooting  one  through  a  crack  of  his  father's 
cabin. 

In  the  autumn  of  1818  his  mother  died.  Her  death  was 
to  her  family,  and  especially  her  favorite  son  Abraham,  an 
irreparable  loss.  Although  she  died  when  in  his  tenth  year, 
she  had  already  deeply  impressed  upon  him  those  elements 
of  character  which  were  the  foundation  of  his  greatness; 


12  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

perfect  truthfulness,  inflexible  honesty,  love  of  justice  and 
respect  for  age,  and  reverence  for  God.  He  ever  spoke  of 
her  with  the  most  touching  affection.  "  All  that  I  am,  or 
hope  to  be,"  said  he,  "  I  owe  to  my  angel  mother." 

It  was  his  mother  who  taught  him  to  read  and  write ;  from 
her  he  learned  to  read  the  Bible,  and  this  book  he  read  and 
re-read  in  youth,  because  he  had  little  else  to  read,  and  later 
in  life  because  he  believed  it  was  the  word  of  God,  and  the 
best  guide  of  human  conduct.  It  was  very  rare  to  find,  "even 
among  clergymen,  any  so  familiar  with  it  as  he,  and  few 
could  so  readily  and  accurately  quote  its  text. 

There  is  something  very  affecting  in  the  incident  that  this 
boy — whom  his  mother  had  found  time  amidst  her  weary 
toil  and  the  hard  struggle  of  her  rude  life,  to  teach  to  write 
legibly,  should  find  the  first  occasion  of  putting  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  pen  to  practical  use,  was  in  writing  a  letter  to  a 
traveling  preacher,  imploring  him  to  come  and  perform  re- 
ligious services  over  his  mother's  grave.  The  preacher,  a  Mr. 
Elkin,  came,  though  not  immediately,  traveling  many  miles 
on  horseback  through  the  wild  forests ;  and  some  months 
after  her  death  the  family  and  neighbors  gathered  around  the 
tree  beneath  which  they  had  laid  her,  to  perform  the  simple, 
solemn  funeral  rites.  Hymns  were  sung,  prayers  said,  and 
an  address  pronounced  over  her  grave.  The  impression  made 
upon  young  Lincoln  by  his  mother  was  as  lasting  as  life. 
Love  of  truth,  reverence  for  religion,  perfect  integrity,  wriv 
ever  associated  in  his  mind  with  the  tenderest  love  and  re- 
spect for  her.  His  father  subsequently  married  Mrs.  Sally 
Johnson,  of  Kentucky,  a  widow  with  three  children. 

In  March,  1830,  the  family  removed  to  Illinois,  and  settled 
in  Macon  County,  near  Decatur.  Here  he  assisted  his  father 
to  build  a  log-cabin  ;  clear,  fence,  and  plant  a  few  acres  of 


YOUTH    OF   LINCOLN.  13 

land ;  and  then,  being  now  twenty-one  years  of  age,  he  asked 
permission  to  seek  his  own  fortune.  He  began  by  going  out 
to  work  by  the  month,  breaking  up  the  prairie,  splitting  and 
chopping  cord  wood,  and  any  thing  he  could  find  to  do.  His 
father  not  long  afterward  removed  to  Coles  County,  Illinois, 
where  he  lived  until  1851,  dying  at  the  age  of  seventy-three. 
He  lived  to  see  his  son  Abraham  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished men  in  the  State,  and  received  from  him  many 
memorials  of  his  affection  and  kindness.  His  son  often  sent 
money  to  his  father  and  other  members  of  his  family,  and 
always  treated  them,  however  poor  and  illiterate,  with  the 
kindest  consideration. 

It  is  clear  from  his  own  declarations  that  he  early  cher- 
ished an  ambition,  probably  under  the  inspiration  of  his 
mother,  to  rise  to  a  higher  position.  He  had  in  all  less  than 
one  year's  attendance  at  school,  but  his  mother  having  taught 
him  to  read  and  write,  with  an  industry,  application,  and 
perseverance  untiring,  he  applied  himself  to  all  the  means  of 
improvement  within  his  reach.  Fortunately,  providentially, 
the  Bible  has  been  everywhere  and  always  present  in  every 
cabin  and  home  in  the  land.  The  influence  of  this  book 
formed  his  character;  he  was  able  to  obtain  in  addition  to 
the  Bible,  Esop's  Fables,  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  Weems' 
Life  of  Washington,  and  Burns'  Poems.  These  constituted 
nearly  all  he  read  before  he  reached  the  age  of  nineteen. 
Living  on  the  frontier,  mingling  with  the  rude,  hard-working, 
honest,  and  virtuous  backwoodsmen,  he  became  expert  in  the 
use  of  every  implement  of  agriculture  and  woodcraft,  and  as 
an  ax-man  he  had  no  superior. 

His  days  were  spent  in  hard  manual  labor,  and  his 
evenings  in  study;  he  grew  up  free  from  idleness,  and  con- 
tracted no  stain  of  intemperance,  profanity,  or  vice ;  he 


14  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

drank  no  intoxicating  liquors,  nor  did  he  use  tobacco  in 
any  form. 

There  is  a  tradition  that  while  residing  at  New  Salem, 
Mr.  Lincoln  entertained  a  boy's  fancy  for  a  prairie  beauty 
named  Ann  Rutledge.  Mr.  Irving,  in  his  life  of  Washing- 
ton, says :  "  Before  he  (Washington)  was  fifteen  years  of  age, 
he  had  conceived  a  passion  for  some  unknown  beauty,  so 
serious  as  to  disturb  his  otherwise  well-regulated  mind, 
and  to  make  him  really  unhappy."  Some  romance  has  been 
published  in  regard  to  this  early  attachment  of  Lincoln, 
and  gossip  and  imagination  have  converted  a  simple,  boyish 
fancy,  such  as  few  reach  manhood  without  having  passed 
through,  into  a  "grand  passion."  It  has  been  produced  in 
a  form  altogether  too  dramatic  and  highly-colored  for  the 
truth.  The  idea  that  this  fancy  had  any  permanent  influ- 
ence upon  his  life  and  character  is  purely  imaginary.  No 
man  was  ever  a  more  devoted  and  affectionate  husband 
and  father  than  he. 

In  the  spring  of  1832  Lincoln  volunteered  as  a  private 
in  a  company  of  soldiers  raised  by  the  Governor  of  Illinois, 
for  what  is  known  as  the  Black  Hawk  War.  He  was 
elected  captain  of  the  company,  and  served  during  the  cam- 
paign, but  had  no  opportunity  of  meeting  the  enemy. 

Soon  after  his  return  he  was  nominated  for  the  State 
Legislature,  and  in  the  precinct  in  which  he  resided,  out 
of  284  votes  received  all  but  seven.  It  was  while  a  resi- 
dent of  New  Salem  that  he  became  a  practical  surveyor. 

Up  to  this  period  the  life  of  Lincoln  had  been  one  of 
labor,  hardship,  and  struggle :  his  shelter  had  been  the  log- 
cabin  ;  his  food,  the  "  corn  dodger  and  common  doings?*  the 

*  The  settlers  have  an  expression.  "Corn  dodger  and  common  doin's,"  as  contradis- 
tinguished from  "Wheat  bread  and  chickin  fixin's.1' 


IN   THE    LEGISLATURE. AT    THE    BAR.  15 

game  of  the  forests  and  the  prairie,  and  the  products  of 
the  farm;  his  dress,  the  Kentucky  jean  and  buckskin  of 
the  frontier;  the  tools  with  which  he  labored,  the  ax,  the 
hoe,  and  the  plow.  He  had  made  two  trips  to  New  Orleans; 
these  and  his  soldiering  in  the  Black  Hawk  War  showed 
his  fondness  for  adventure. 

Thus  far  he  had  been  a  backwoodsman,  a  rail-splitter,  a 
natboatman,  a  clerk,  a  captain  of  volunteers,  a  surveyor.  In 
1834  he  was  elected  to  the  Legislature  of  Illinois,  receiving 
the  highest  vote  of  any  one  on  the  ticket.  He  was  re-elected 
in  1836  (the  term  being  for  two  years).  At  this  session  he 
met,  as  a  fellow-member,  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  then  repre- 
senting Morgan  County. 

He  remained  a  member  of  the  Legislature  for  eight 
years,  and  then  declined  being  again  a  candidate. 

He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Illinois  in  the  autumn  of  1836,  and  his  name  first  appears 
on  the  roll  of  attorneys  in  1837. 

In  April  of  this  year  he  removed  to  Springfield,  and 
soon  after  entered  into  partnership  with  his  friend,  John 
T.  Stewart.  As  a  lawyer  he  early  manifested,  in  a  won- 
derful degree,  the  power  of  simplifying  and  making  clear 
to  the  common  understanding  the  most  difficult  and. abstruse 
questions. 

The  circuit  practice — "riding  the  circuit"  it  was  called 
— as  conducted  in  Illinois  thirty  years  ago,  was  admirably 
adapted  to  educate,  develop,  and  discipline  all  there  was  in 
a  man  of  intellect  and  character.  Few  books  could  be  ob- 
tained upon  the  circuit,  and  no  large  libraries  for  consulta- 
tion could  be  found  anywhere.  A  mere  case  lawyer  was  a 
helpless  child  in  the  hands  of  the  intellectual  giants  pro- 
duced by  these  circuit-court  contests,  where  novel  questions 


16  SKETCH    OF   THE   LIFE   OF    LINCOLN. 

were  constantly  arising,  and  must  be  immediately  settled 
upon  principle  and  analogy.* 

A  few  elementary  books,  such  as  Blackstone's  and  Kent's 
Commentaries,  Chitty's  Pleadings,  and  Starkie's  Evidence, 
could  sometimes  be  found,  or  an  odd  volume  would  be 
carried  along  with  the  scanty  wardrobe  of  the  attorney  in 
his  saddle-bags.  These  were  studied  until  the  text  was  as 
familiar  as  the  alphabet.  By  such  aid  as  these  afforded, 
and  the  application  of  principles,  were  all  the  complex 
questions  which  arose  settled.  Thirty  years  ago  it  was  the 
practice  of  the  leading  members  of  the  bar  to  follow 
the  judge  from  county  to  county.  The  court-houses  were 
rude  log  buildings,  with  slab  benches  for  seats,  and  the 
roughest  pine  tables.  In  these,  when  courts  were  in  session, 
Lincoln  could  be  always  found,  dressed  in  Kentucky  jean, 
and  always  surrounded  by  a  circle  of  admiring  friends — 
always  personally  popular  with  the  judges,  the  lawyers,  the 
jury,  and  the  spectators.  His  wit  and  humor,  his  power 
of  illustration  by  apt  comparison  and  anecdote,  his  power 
to  ridicule  by  ludicrous  stories  and  illustrations,  were 
inexhaustible. 

He  always  aided  by  his  advice  and  counsel  the  young 
members  of  the  bar.  No  embarrassed  tyro  in  the  profes- 
sion ever  sought  his  assistance  in  vain,  and  it  was  not 
unusual  for  him,  if  his  adversary  was  young  and  inex- 
perienced, kindly  to  point  out  to  him  formal  errors  in  his 
pleadings  and  practice.  His  manner  of  conducting  jury 
trials  was  very  effective. 

He  was  familiar,  frequently  colloquial :  at  the  summer 
terms  of  the  courts,  he  would  often  take  cff  his  coat,  and 
leaning  carelessly  on  the  rail  of  the  jury  box,  would 

*  Vide  "History  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Overthrow  of  Slavery,"  p.  76 


LINCOLN    AS    A    LAWYER.  17 

single  out  and  address  a  leading  juryman,  in  a  conversa- 
tional way,  and  with  his  invariable  candor  and  fairness 
1  would  proceed  to  reason  the  case.  When  he  was  satis- 
fied that  he  had  secured  the  favorable  judgment  of  the 
juryman  so  addressed,  he  would  turn  to  another,  and  ad- 
dress him  in  the  same  manner,  until  he  was  convinced  the 
jury  were  with  him.  There  were  times  when  aroused  by 
injustice,  fraud,  or  some  great  wrong  or  falsehood,  when 
his  denunciation  was  so  crushing  that  the  object  of  it 
was  driven  from  the  court-room. 

There  was  a  latent  power  in  him  which  when  aroused 
was  literally  overwhelming.  This  power  was  sometimes 
exhibited  in  political  debate,  and  there  were  occasions 
when  it  utterly  paralyzed  his  opponent.  His  replies  to 
Douglas,  at  Springfield  and  Peoria,  in  1858,  were  illus- 
trations of  this  power.  His  examination  and  cross-exam- 
ination of  witnesses  were  very  happy  and  effective.  He 
always  treated  those  who  were  disposed  to  be  truthful 
with  respect. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  professional  bearing  was  so  high,  he  was 
so  courteous  and  fair  that  no  man  ever  questioned  his 
truthfulness  or  his  honor.  No  one  who  watched  him  for 
half  an  hour  in  court  in  an  important  case  ever  doubted 
his  ability.  He  understood  human  nature  well;  and  read 
the  character  of  party,  jury,  witnesses,  and  attorneys,  and 
knew  how  to  address  and  influence  them.  Probably  as 
a  jury  lawyer,  on  the  right  side,  he  has  never  had  his 
superior. 

Such  was  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  bar,  a  fair,  honest,  able 
lawyer,  on  the  right  side  irresistible,  on  the  wrong  com- 
paratively weak. 


18  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 


MR  LHSTCOKN" 

FROM   HIS 

RETIREMENT  FROM  THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE 

TO    HIS 

ELECTION    TO    CONGRESS. 


A  FEIEND  and  associate  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  speaking  of  him, 
as  he  was  in  1840,  says:  "They  mistake  greatly  who  re- 
gard him  as  an  uneducated  man.  In  the  physical  sciences 
he  was  remarkably  well  read.  In  scientific  mechanics, 
and  all  inventions  and  labor-saving  machinery,  he  was 
thoroughly  informed.  He  was  one  of  the  best  practical 
surveyors  in  the  State.  He  understood  the  general  prin- 
ciples of  botany,  geology,  and  astronomy,  and  had  a  great 
treasury  of  practical  useful  knowledge.1' 

He  continued  to  acquire  knowledge  and  to  grow  intel- 
lectually until  his  death,  and  became  one  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent and  best-informed  men  in  public  life. 

Early  in  life  he  became  an  anti-slavery  man,  as  well  from 
the  impulses  of  his  heart  as  the  convictions  of  his  reason. 
He  always  had  an  intense  hatred  of  oppression  in  every  form, 
and  an  honest,  earnest  faith  in  the  common  people,  and  his 
sympathies  were  ever  with  the  oppressed.  The  most  con- 
spicuous traits  of  his  character  were  love  of  justice  and  love 


MARRIAGE   OF    LINCOLN.  19 

of  truth.  It  is  false,  very  arrogant,  and  to  those  who  knew 
Lincoln  in  his  earlier  years,  it  is  very  amusing,  for  any  man  or 
set  of  men  to  assume  to  himself  or  themselves  the  credit  of 
having  inspired  him  with  hatred  of  slavery.  No  man  was 
less  influenced  by  others  in  coming  to  his  conclusions  than  he  ; 
and  this  was  especially  true  in  regard  to  questions  involving 
right  and  justice.  .  His  own  heart,  his  own  observation,  his 
own  clear  intellect  led  him  to  become  an  anti-slavery  man. 
Long  before  he  plead  the  cause  of  the  slave  before  the  Ameri- 
can people,  he  said  to  a  friend,*  "  It  is  strange  that  while  our 
courts  decide  that  a  man  does  not  lose  his  title  to  his  property 
by  its  being  stolen,  but  he  may  reclaim  it  whenever  he  can 
find  it,  yet  if  he  himself  is  stolen  he  instantly  loses  his  right 
to  himself!" 

In  November,  1842,  he  was  married  to  Miss  Mary  Todd, 
daughter  of  the  Hon.  Robert  S.  Todd,  of  Kentucky.  The 
mother  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  died  when  she  was  young.  She  had 
sisters  living  at  Springfield,  Illinois.  Visiting  them,  she  made 
the  acquaintance  and  won  the  heart  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  They 
had  four  children,  Robert,  Edward  (who  died  in  infancy),  Wil- 
liam, and  Thomas.  Robert  and  Thomas  survive.  William,  a 
beautiful  and  promising  boy,  died  at  Washington,  during  his 
father's  presidency.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  most  fond,  tender,  and 
affectionate  husband  and  father.  No  man  was  ever  more 
faithful  and  true  in  his  domestic  relations. 

*  Hon.  Jos.  Gillespie. 


20  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 


LINCOLN    IN    COKGKESS. 

ON  the  6th  of  December,  1847,  Mr.  Lincoln  took  his  seat 
in  Congress.  Mr.  Douglas,  who  had  already  rim  a  brilliant 
career  in  the  lower  House  of  Congress,  at  this  same  session 
took  his  seat  in  the  Senate.  Mr.  Lincoln  distinguished  him- 
self by  able  speeches  upon  the  Mexican  War,  upon  Internal 
Improvements,  and  by  one  of  the  most  effective  campaign 
speeches  of  that  Congress  in  favor  of  the  election  of  General 
Taylor  to  the  Presidency.  He  proposed  a  bill  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  at  the  National  capital.  He  declined  a  re- 
election, and  was  succeeded  by  his  friend,  the  eloquent  E.  D. 
Baker,  who  was  killed  at  Ball's  Bluff. 

In  1852,  he  lead  the  electoral  ticket  of  Illinois  in  favor 
of  General  Scott  for  President.  Franklin  Pierce  was  elected, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  remained  quietly  engaged  in  his  professional 
pursuits  until  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  in  1854. 
This  event  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  slavery.  "  It 
thoroughly  roused  the  people  of  the  Free  States  to  a  realiza- 
tion of  the  progress  and  encroachments  of  the  slave  power, 
and  the  necessity  of  preserving  '  the  jewel  of  freedom.' ' 
From  that  hour  the  conflict  went  on  between  freedom  and 
slavery,  first  by  the  ballot,  and  all  the  agencies  by  which  pub- 
lic opinion  is  influenced,  and  then  the  slave-holders,  seeing  that 
their  supremacy  was  departing,  sought  by  arms  to  overthrow 
the  government  which  they  could  no  longer  control. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  while  a  strong  opponent  of  slavery,  had  up  to 
this  time  rested  in  the  hope  that  by  peaceful  agencies  it  was 


OPPOSITION    TO    SLAVERY.  21 

in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  But  now  seeing  the  vast 
strides  it  was  making,  he  became  convinced  its  progress  must 
be  arrested  or  that  it  would  dominate  over  the  republic,  and 
Slavery  would  become  "  lawful  in  all  the  States."  '  From  this 
time  he  gave  himself  with  solemn  earnestness  to  the  cause  of 
liberty  and  his  country.  He  forgot  himself  in  his  great  cause. 
He  did  not  seek  place,  if  the  great  cause  could  be  better  ad- 
vanced by  the  promotion  of  another ;  hence  his  promotion  of 
the  election  of  Trumbull  to  the  United  States  Senate. 

This  unselfish  devotion  to  principle  was  a  great  source 
of  his  power.  Placing  himself  at  the  head  of  those  who 
opposed  the  extension  of,  and  who  believed  in  the  moral 
wrong  of  slavery,  he  entered  upon  his  great  mission  with 
a  singleness  of  purpose,  an  eloquence  and  power,  which 
made  him  as  the  advocate  of  freedom,  the  most  eifective 
and  influential  speaker  who  ever  addressed  the  American 
people. 

He  brought  to  the  tremendous  struggle  between  free- 
dom and  slavery  physical  strength  and  endurance  almost 
superhuman.  Notwithstanding  his  modesty  and  the  ab- 
sence of  all  self-assertion,  when  we  review  the  conflict 
from  1854  to  1865,  when  the  struggle  closed  by  the  adop- 
tion of  the  constitutional  amendment  abolishing  and  pro- 
hibiting slavery  forever  throughout  the  republic,  it  is 
clear  that  Lincoln's  speeches  and  writings  did  more  to  ac- 
complish this  result  than  any  other  agency. 

Following  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  came 
the  Kansas  struggle,  and  the  organization  of  a  great  party 
to  resist  the  encroachments  and  aggressions  of  slavery. 
The  people  instinctively  found  the  leader  of  such  a  party 
in  Lincoln. 

Looking    over    the    whole   ground,    with    the    sagacity 


22  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE   OF   LINCOLN. 

which  marked  his  far-seeing  mind,  he  saw  .that  the  basis 
upon  which  to  build  were  the  grand  principles  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  This  foundation  was  broad 
enough  to'  include  old-fashioned  Democrats  who  sympa- 
thized with  Jefferson  in  his  hatred  of  slavery ;  Whigs 
who  had  learned  their  love  of  liberty  from  the  utter- 
ances of  the  Adamses  and  Channings,  and  the  earlier 
speeches  of  Webster ;  and  anti-slavery  men,  who  recog- 
nized Chase  and  Suniner  as  their  leaders. 

He  now  addressed  himself  to  the  work  of  consolida- 
ting out  of  all  these  elements  a  party,  the  distinctive 
characteristics  of  which  should  be  the  'full  recognition  of 
the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  hos- 
tility to  the  extension  of  Slavery.  This  was  the  party 
which  in  1856  gave  John  C.  Fremont  114  electoral 
votes  for  President,  and  in  1860,  elected  Lincoln  to  the 
executive  chair. 


LINCOLN    AND    DOUGLAS    DEBATE.  23 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATE. 

IN  the  midsummer  of  1858,  Senator  Douglas,  whose  term 
approached  its  close,  came  home  to  canvass  for  re-elec- 
tion. It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  Kansas  struggle,  and 
although  he  had  broken  with  the  administration  of  Bu- 
chanan, because  he  resisted  the  admission  of  Kansas  into  the 
Union,  under  the  fraudulent  Lecompton  Constitution,  and 
insisted  that  the  people  of  that  State,  should  enjoy  the 
right  by  a  fair  vote,  of  deciding  upon  the  character  of 
their  Constitution,  *  yet  the  people  of  Illinois,  did  not 
forget  that  he  was  chiefly  responsible  for  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  that  he  had  indorsed  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  On  the  17th  of  June,  1858,  the 
Republican  State  Convention  of  Illinois  met  and  by  ac- 
clamation nominated  Mr.  Lincoln  for  the  Senate.  He  was 
unquestionably  more  indebted  to  Douglas  for  his  greatness 
than  to  any  other  person. 

In  1856  Lincoln  said,  "Twenty  years  ago  Judge 
Douglas  and  I  first  became  acquainted;  we  were  both 
young  then,  he  a  trifle  younger  than  I.  Even  then  we 
were  both  ambitious,  I  perhaps  quite  as  much  as  he. 
With  me  the  race  of  ambition  has  proved  a  flat  failure ; 
with  him  it  has  been  one  of  splendid  success.  His  name 
fills  the  nation,  and  it  is  not  unknown  in  foreign  lands. 
I  affect  no  contempt  for  the  high  eminence  he  has  reached ; 
so  reached  that  the  oppressed  of  my  species  might  have 

*  That  they  "  should  be  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions 
in  their  own  way." 


24  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

shared  with  me  in  the  elevation,  I  would  rather  stand 
on  that  eminence  than  wear  the  richest  crown  that  ever 
pressed  a  monarch's  brow." 

Ten  years  had  not  gone  by,  before  the  modest  Lincoln, 
then  so  humbly  expressing  this  noble  sentiment,  and  to 
whom  at  that  moment  "The  race  of  ambition  seemed  a 
flat  failure;"  ten  years  had  not  passed,  ere  he  had  reached 
an  eminence  on  which  his  name  filled,  not  a  nation  only, 
but  the  world ;  and  he  had  indeed  so  reached  it,  that 
the  oppressed  did  share  with  him  in  the  elevation ;  and 
so  far  had  he  passed  his  then  great  rival,  that  the  name 
of  Douglas  will  be  carried  down  to  posterity,  chiefly  be- 
cause of  its  association  as  a  competitor  with  Lincoln. 

But  in  many  particulars  Douglas  was  not  an  unworthy 
competitor.  The  contest  between  these  two  champions 
was  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  in  American  history. 
They  were  the  acknowledged  leaders,  each  of  his  party. 
Douglas  had  been  a  prominent  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
was  well  known  and  personally  popular,  not  only  in  the 
West,  but  throughout  the  Union.  Both  were  men  of  great 
and  marked  individuality  of  character.  The  immediate 
prize  was  the  Senatorship  of  the  great  State  of  Illinois, 
and,  in  the  future,  the  presidency.  The  result  would  large- 
ly influence  the  struggle  for  freedom  in  Kansas,  and  the 
question  of  slavery  throughout  the  Union.  The  canvass 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  people  everywhere,  and  the 
speeches  were  reported  and  published,  not  only  in  the 
leading  papers  in  the  State,  but  reporters  were  sent  from 
most  of  the  large  cities,  to  report  the  incidents  of  the 
debates,  and  describe  the  conflict. 

Douglas  was  at*  this  time  uuquestionaoly  the  leading 
debater  in  the  United  States  Senate.  For  years  he  had 


STEPHEN   A.    DOUGLAS.  25 

been  accustomed  to  meet  the  great  leaders  of  the  nation 
in  Congress,  and  he  had  rarely  been  discomfited.  He  had 
contended  with  Jefferson  Davis,  and  Toombs,  and  Hunter, 
and  with  Chase,  and  Sunnier,  and  Seward;  and  his  friends 
claimed  that  he  was  the  equal,  if  not  the  superior,  of  the 
ablest.  He  was  fertile  in  resources,  severe  in  denunciation, 
familiar  with  political  history,  and  had  participated  so  many 
years  in  Congressional  debate,  that  he  handled  with  readi- 
ness and  facility  all  the  weapons  of  political  controversy. 
Of  indomitable  physical  and  moral  courage,  he  was  certainly 
among  the  most  formidable  men  in  the  nation  on  the  stump. 
In  Illinois,  where  he  had  hosts  of  Mends  and  enthusiastic 
followers,  he  possessed  a  power  over  the  masses  unequaled 
by  any  other  man,  a  most  striking  exhibition  of  which  was 
exhibited  in  this  canvass,  in  which  he  held  to  himself  the 
whole  Democratic  party  of  the  State.  The  administra- 
tion of  Buchanan,  with  all  its  patronage  melded  by  the 
wily  and  unscrupulous  Slidell,  and  running  a  separate 
ticket,  was  able  to  detach  only  5,000  out  of  126,000  votes 
from  him.  There  was  something  exciting,  something  which 
stirred  the  blood,  in  the  boldness  with  which  he  threw  him- 
self into  the  conflict,  and  dealt  his  blows  right  and  left 
against  the  Republican  party  on  one  side,  and  the  administra- 
tion of  Buchanan,  which  sought  his  defeat,  on  the  other. 

Two  men  presenting  more  striking  contrasts,  physically, 
intellectually,  and  morally,  could  not  anywhere  be  found. 
Douglas  was  a  short,  sturdy,  resolute  man,  with  large  head 
and  chest,  and  short  legs;  his  ability  had  gained  for  him 
the  appellation  of  "The  little  giant  of  Illinois." 

Lincoln  was  of  the  Kentucky  type  of  men,  very  tall, 
long-limbed,  angular,  awkward  in  gait  and  attitude,  physi- 
cally a  real  giant,  large-featured,  his  eyes  deep-set  under 


26  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE   OF    LINCOLN. 

heavy   eyebrows,   his    forehead    high   and    retreating,   with 
heavy,  dark  hair. 

Their  style  of  speaking,  like  every  thing  about  them, 
was  in  'striking  contrast.  Douglas,  skilled  by  a  thousand 
conflicts  in  all  the  strategy  of  a  face  to  face  encounter, 
stepped  upon  the  platform  and  faced  the  thousands  of 
friends  and  foes  around  him  with  an  air  of  conscious 
power.  There  was  an  air  of  indomitable  pluck,  sometimes 
something  approaching  impudence  in  his  manner,  when  he 
looked  out  on  the  immense  throngs  which  surged  and 
struggled  before  him.  Lincoln  was  modest,  but  always 
self-possessed,  with  no  self-consciousness,  his  whole  mind 
evidently  absorbed  in  his  great  theme,  always  candid, 
truthful,  cool,  logical,  accurate;  at  times,  inspired  by  his 
subject,  rising  to  great  dignity  and  wonderful  power.  The 
impression  made  by  Douglas,  upon  a  stranger  who  saw 
him  for  the  first  time  on  the  platform,  would  be — "  that 
is  a  bold,  audacious,  ready  debater,  an  ugly  opponent." 
Of  Lincoln — "  There  is  a  candid,  truthful,  sincere  man,  who, 
whether  right  or  wrong,  believes  he  is  right."  Lincoln 
argued  the  side  of  freedom,  with  the  most  thorough  con- 
viction that  on  its  triumph  depended  the  fate  of  the 
Republic.  An  idea  of  the  impression  made  by  Lincoln 
in  these  discussions  may  be  inferred  from  a  remark  made 
by  a  plain  old  Quaker,  who,  at  the  close  of  the  Ottawa 
debate,  said :  "  Friend,  doubtless  God  Almighty  might  have 
made  an  honester  man  than  Abe  Lincoln,  but  doubtless 
he  never  did."  It  is  curious  that  the  cause  of  freedom  was 
plead  by  a  Kentuckian,  and  that  of  slavery  by  a  native 
of  Vermont.  Forgetful  of  the  ancestral  hatred  of  slavery 
to  which  he  had  been  born,  Douglas  had,  by  marriage, 
become  a  slave-holder.  Lincoln  had  one  great  advantage 


COOPEK    INSTITUTE    ADDRESS.  27 

over  his  antagonist — he  was  always  good-humored ;  while 
Douglas  sometimes  lost  his  temper,  Lincoln  never  lost  his. 

The  great  champions  in  these  debates,  and  their  dis- 
cussions, have  passed  into  history,  and  the  world  has  rati- 
fied the  popular  verdict  of  the  day — that  Lincoln  was  the 
victor.  It  should  be  remembered,  in  justice  to  the  intel- 
lectual power  of  Douglas,  that  Lincoln  spoke  for  liberty, 
and  he  was  the  organ  of  a  new  and  vigorous  party,  with 
a  full  consciousness  of  being  in  the  right.  Douglas  was 
looking  to  the  presidency  as  well  as  the  senatorship,  and 
must  keep  one  eye  on  the  slave-holder  and  the  other  on 
the  citizens  of  Illinois. 

The  debates  in  the  old  Continental  Congress,  and  those 
on  the  Missouri  question  of  1820-1,  those  of  Webster  and 
Hayne,  and  Webster  and  Calhoun,  are  all  historical ;  but 
it  may  be  doubted  if  either  were  more  important  than 
these  of  Lincoln  and  Douglas. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  although  his  party  received  a  majority  of  the 
popular  vote  was  defeated  for  Senator,  because  certain  Dem- 
ocratic Senators  held  over  from  certain  Republican  districts. 

On  the  27th  of  February,  1860,  Mr.  Lincoln  delivered  his 
celebrated  Cooper  Institute  address.  Many  went  to  hear  the 
prairie  orator,  expecting  to  be  entertained  with  noisy  decla- 
mation, extravagant  and  verbose,  and  with  plenty  of  amusing 
stories.  The  speech  was  so  dignified,  so  exact  in  language 
and  statement,  so  replete  with  historical  learning,  it  exhibited 
such  strength  and  grasp  of  thought  and  was  so  elevated  in 
tone,  that  the  intelligent  audience  were  astonished  and 
delighted.  The  closing  sentence  is  characteristic,  and  should 
never  be  forgotten  by  those  who  advocate  the  right.  "  Let 
us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us 
to  the  end  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it." 


28  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 


NOMINATION  AND  ELECTION  AS  PRESIDENT. 

WHEN  the  National  Convention  met  at  Chicago  in  the 
June  following,  to  nominate  a  candidate  for  President,  while 
a  majority  of  the  delegates  were  divided  among  Messrs. 
Seward,  Chase,  Cameron,  and  Bates,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  first 
choice  of  a  large  plurality,  and  the  second  choice  of  all ; 
besides  he  was  personally  so  popular  with  the  people,  his 
sobriquet  of  "  Honest  old  Abe,"  "  The  Illinois  Rail-splitter," 
satisfied  the  shrewd  men  who  were  studying  the  best  means 
of  securing  success,  that  he  was  the  most  available  man  to 
head  the  ticket.  These  considerations  made  his  nomination 
a  certainty  from  the  beginning. 

The  nomination  was  hailed  with  enthusiasm  throughout 
the  Union.  Never  did  a  party  enter  upon  a  canvass  wTith 
more  zeal  and  energy.  With  the  usual  motives  which 
actuate  political  parties  there  were  in  this  canvass  mingled  a 
love  of  country,  a  devotion  to  liberty,  a  keen  sense  of  the 
wrongs  and  outrages  inflicted  upon  the  Free  State  men  of 
Kansas,  which  fired  all  hearts  with  enthusiasm.  Mr.  Lincoln 
received  one  hundred  and  eighty  electoral  votes,  Douglas 
twelve,  Breckinridge  seventy -two,  and  John  Bell  of  Ten- 
nessee, thirty-nine.  Mr.  Lincoln  received  of  the  popular  vote 
1,866,452,  a  plurality,  but  not  a  majority  of  the  whole. 

By  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  the  executive  power  of  the 
republic  passed  from  the  slave-holders.  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the 
great  party  who  elected  him  contemplated  no  interference 
with  slavery  in  the  States.  They  meant  to  prevent  its 


JOURNEY    TO    WASHINGTON.  29 

further  extension,  but  the  slave-holders  instinctively  felt  that 
with  the  government  in  the  hands  of  those  who  believed 
slavery  morally  wrong,  the  end  of  slavery  was  a  mere  ques- 
tion of  time.  Rather  than  yield,  the  slave  aristocracy 
resolved  "  to  take  up  the  sword,"  and  hence  the  terrible  civil 
war. 

On  the  llth  of  February,  1861,  Mr.  Lincoln  left  his  quiet 
happy  home  at  Springfield  to  enter  upon  that  tempestuous 
political  career  which  was  to  lead  him  through  a  martyr's 
grave  to  a  deathless  fame  among  the  greatest  and  noblest 
patriots  and  benefactors  of  mankind.  With  a  dim,  myste- 
rious foreshadowing  of  the  future,  he  uttered  to  his  friends 
and  neighbors  who  gathered  around  him  to  say  good-bye,  his 
farewell.  He  seemed  conscious  that  he  might  see  the  place 
which  had  been  his  home  for  "  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and 
where  his  children  were  born,  and  where  one  of  them  lay 
buried  "  no  more.  Weighed  down  with  the  consciousness  of 
the  great  duties  which  devolved  upon  him,  greater  than  those 
devolving  upon  any  President  since  Washington,  he  humbly 
expressed  his  reliance  upon  Divine  Providence,  and  asked  his 
friends  to  pray  that  he  might  receive  the  assistance  of 
Almighty  God."  As  he  journeyed  toward  the  capital, 
received  everywhere  with  the  earnest  sympathies  of  the 
people,  the  loyal  men  of  all  parties  assuring  him  of  their 
support,  his  spirits  rose,  and  when  he  passed  the  State  line 
of  his  own  State  his  hopefulness  found  expression  in  the 
words  "  behind  the  cloud  the  sun  is  shining  still."  And  on 
he  sped  through  the  great  Free  States  of  the  North.  While 
on  his  way  to  the  capital  the  people  were  everywhere  deeply 
impressed  by  his  modest  yet  firm  reliance  upon  Providence. 
He  went  forth  not  leaning  on  his  own  strength,  but  resting 
on  Almighty  God. 


30  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF   LINCOLN. 

In  the  early  gray  of  the  morning  of  the  23d  of  February, 
1861,  he  came  in  sight  of  the  dome  of  the  Capitol,  then  filled 
with  traitors  plotting  his  death  and  the  overthrow  of  the 
Government.  By  anticipating  the  train,  by  which  it  had 
been  publicly  announced  that  he  would  pass  through  Balti- 
more, and  passing  through  that  city  at  night  he  escaped  a 
deeply-laid  conspiracy,  which  would  otherwise  have  antici- 
pated the  crime  of  Booth.  None  who  witnessed  will  ever 
forget  the  scene  of  his  first  inauguration. 

The  veteran  Scott  had  gathered  a  few  soldiers  of  the 
Regular  Army  to  preserve  order  and  security ;  many  North- 
ern citizens  thronged  the  streets,  few  of  them  conscious  of 
the  volcano  of  treason  and  murder  seething  beneath  them. 
The  departments  and  public  offices  were  full  of  plotting 
traitors.  Many  of  the  rebel  generals  held  commissions 
under  the  Government  they  were  about  to  desert  and 
betray  The  ceremony  of  inauguration  is  always  imposing ; 
on  this  occasion  it  was  especially  so.  Buchanan,'  sad, 
dejected,  bowed  with  a  seeming  consciousness  of  duties 
unperformed,  rode  with  the  President-elect  to  the  Capitol. 

There  were  gathered  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
both  Houses  of  Congress,  the  representatives  of  foreign 
nations,  and  a  vast  concourse  of  citizens  from  all  sections 
of  the  Union.  There  were  Chase,  and  Seward,  and  Simmer, 
and  Breckinridge,  and  Douglas,  who  was  near  the  Presi- 
dent, and  was  observed  eagerly  looking  over  the  crowd, 
not  unconscious  of  the  personal  danger  of  his  great  and 
successful  rival.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  so  absorbed  with  the 
gravity  of  the  occasion  and  the  condition  of  his  country, 
that  he  utterly  forgot  himself,  and  there  was  observed  a 
dignity,  which  sprung  from  a  mind  entirely  engrossed  with 
public  duties. 


FIRST    INAUGURATION.  31 

He  was  perfectly  cool,  and  stepping  to  the  eastern 
colonnade  of  the  Capitol,  that  voice,  which  had  been  often 
heard  by  tens  of  thousands  on  the  prairies  of  the  West, 
now  read  in  clear  and  ringing  tones  his  inaugural.  On 
the  threshold  of  war,  he  made  a  last  appeal  for  peace. 
He  declared  his  fixed  resolve,  firm  as  the  everlasting  rocks : 
u/  shall  take  care  that  the  laws  of  the  Union  be  faithfully 
executed  in  every  State" 

Yet  his  great,  kind  heart  yearned  for  peace,  and  as  he 
approached  the  close,  his  voice  faltered  with  emotion.  "  1 
am  loath  to  close,"  said  he ;  "  we  are  not  enemies,  but  friends ; 
we  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained, 
it  must  not  break  the  bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  cords 
of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle-field  and  patriot's 
grave,  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  over  all  this 
broad  land,  will  yet  swell  with  the  chorus  of  the  Union, 
when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better 
angels  of  our  nature." 

Alas !  these  appeals  for  peace  were  received  by  those 
to  whom  they  were  addressed  with  coarse  ribaldry,  with 
sneers  and  jeers,  and  all  the  savage  and  barbarous  passions 
which  riot  in  blood.  Lincoln  was  somewhat  slow  to  learn 
that  it  was  to  force  only — stern,  unflinching  force — that  trea- 
son would  yield. 

And  now  opened  that  terrible  civil  war  which  has  no 
parallel  in  history.  Space  will  not  permit  me  to  follow  the 
President  through  those  long  and  terrible  days  of  victory  and 
defeat,  to  final  triumph.  Through  all,  Lincoln  was  firm,  con- 
stant, hopeful,  sagacious,  wise,  confiding  always  in  God,  and 
in  the  people. 


32  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 


THE   THIRTY-SEVENTH   CONGRESS. 

THE  special  session  of  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress  met 
on  the  4th  of  July,  1861,  agreeably  to  the  call  of  the 
President.  Many  vacant  chairs  in  the  National  Council 
impressed  the  spectator  with  the  magnitude  of  the  impend- 
ing struggle.  The  old  chiefs  of  the  slave  party  were  nearly 
all  absent,  some  of  them  as  members  of  a  rebel  government 
at  Richmond,  others  in  arms  against  their  country.  The 
President  calmly,  clearly,  sadly  reviewed  the  facts  which 
compelled  him  to  call  into  action  the  war  powers  of  the 
Government,  and  constrained  him,  as  the  Chief  Magistrate, 
"  to  accept  war^  He  asked  Congress  to  confer  upon  him 
the  power  to  make  the  war  short  and  decisive.  He  asked 
for  400,000  men  and  400  millions  of  money.  With  hearty 
appreciation  of  the  fidelity  of  the  common  people,  he 
proudly  points  to  the  fact  that,  while  large  numbers  of 
the  officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy  had  been  guilty  of  the 
infamous  crime  of  desertion,  "not  one  common  soldier  or 
sailor  is  known  to  have  deserted  his  flag." 

Congress  responded  promptly  to  this  call,  voting  500,000 
men  and  500  millions  of  dollars  to  suppress  the  rebellion. 
From  the  beginning  of  the  contest,  the  slaves  flocked  to  the 
Union  army  as  a  place  of  security  from  their  masters.  They 
seemed  to  feel  instinctively  that  freedom  was  to  be  found 
within  its  picket-lines  and  under  the  folds  of  its  flag.  They 
were  ready  to  act  as  guides,  as  servants,  to  work,  dig,  and  to 
light  for  their  liberty.  And  yet  early  in  the  war  some  officers 


THE    EEBELLIOIST.  33 

permitted  masters  and  agents  to  follow  the  blacks  into  the 
Union  lines  and  carry  away  fugitive  slaves.  This  action  was 
rebuked  by  a  resolution  of  Congress.  At  this  session  a  law 
was  passed  giving  freedom  to  all  slaves  employed  in  aiding 
the  rebellion.  In  October,  1861,  the  military  was  authorized 
by  the  Secretary  of  War  to  avail  itself  of  the  services  of 
"  fugitives  from  labor,''  in  such  way  as  might  be  most  bene- 
ficial to  the  service. 

The  regular  session  of  Congress  assembled  on  the  2d  of 
December,  1861.  Great  armies  confronted  each  other  in  the 
field ;  and  great  conflicts  were  going  on  in  the  public  mind, 
but  the  way  to  victory  through  emancipation  was  not  yet 
clearly  opened.  The  President  was  feeling  his  way,  watching 
the  progress  of  public  opinion ;  striving  to  secure  to  the  Union 
the  Border  States  of  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri.  On 
the  subject  of  Emancipation,  he  said  in  his  message :  ."  the 
Union  must  be  preserved,  and  all  indispensable  means  must 
be  used,"  but  he  wisely  waited  until  the  public  sentiment 
should  consolidate,  and  all  other  means  of  maintaining  the 

O 

integrity  of  the  nation  should  have  been  exhausted.  During 
this  session  the  way  was  prepared  for  the  great  edict  of 
Emancipation  ;  Slavery  was  abolished  at  the  National  Capital, 
prohibited  forever  in  all  the  Territories,  the  slaves  of  rebels 
declared  free,  and  the  Government  authorized  to  employ 
slaves  as  soldiers,  and  every  person  in  the  military  or  naval 
service  of  the  Republic  prohibited  from  aiding  in  the  arrest 
of  any  fugitive  slave.  These  measures  were  all  urged  by  the 
personal  and  political  friends  of  the  President,  and  became 
laws  with  his  sanction  and  hearty  assent.  They  prepared  the 
way  for  the  final  overthrow  of  slavery. 


34  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION 

IN  April,  1862,  it  was  known  at  Washington  that  the 
President  was  considering  the  subject  of  emancipating  the 
slaves  as  a  war  measure.  The  Border  States  selected  their 
ablest  man,  the  venerable  John  J.  Crittenden,  from  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's native  State,  to  make  a  public  appeal  to  him  to  stay 
his  hand.  The  eloquent  Kentuckian  discharged  the  part  as- 
signed him  well.  Never  shall  I  forget  the  scene  when,  with 
great  emotion  before  Congress  he  said,  that  although  he  had 
voted  against  and  opposed  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  had  been  won  to 
his  side.  "And now"  said  he,  "  there  is  a  niche  near  to  Wash- 
ington which  should  be  occupied  by  him  who  shall  save  his 
country.  Mr.  Lincoln  has  a  mighty  destiny  !  *  *  He 

is  no  coward,  he  may  be  President  of  all  the  people  and  fill 
that  niche,  but  if  he  chooses  to  be  in  these  times  a  mere  sec- 
tarian and  paitfy  man,  that  place  will  be  reserved  for  some 
future  and  better  patriot."  "  It  is  in  his  power  to  occupy  a 
place  next  to  Washington,  the  founder  and  preserver  side  by 
side."  It  was  understood  the  Border  State  men  everywhere 
were  ready  to  crown  him  the  peer  of  Washington  if  he  would 
not  touch  slavery 

It  was  OWEN  LOVEJOY,  the  early  abolitionist,  who 
made  an  instantaneous,  impromptu  reply,  a  reply  the  elo- 
quence of  which  thrilled  Congress  and  the  country,  and  is 
in  my  judgment  among  the  finest  specimens  of  American 
eloquence. 

Said   he,    "Let   Abraham    Lincoln    make    himself,    as   I 


CRITTENDEN    AND    LOVEJOY.  35 

trust  he  will,  the  Emancipator,  the  liberator  of  a  race,  and 
his  name  shall  not  only  be  enrolled  in  this  earthly  temple, 
but  it  will  be  traced  on  the  living  stones  of  that  Temple, 
which  rears  itself  amidst  the  thrones  of  Heaven."  Allud- 
ing to  what  Crittenden  had  said,  he  added,  "  There  is 
a  niche  for  Abraham  Lincoln  in  Freedom's  holy  fane.  In 
that  niche  he  shall  stand  proudly,  gloriously,  with  shat- 
tered fetters,  and  broken  chains  and  slave-whips  beneath 
his  feet.  *  *  This  is  a  fame  worth  living  for;  ay,  more, 
it  is  a  fame  worth  dying  for,  even  though  (said  he  with 
prophetic  prescience)  that  death  led  through  the  blood  of 
Gethsemane  and  the  agony  of  the  accursed  tree." 

These  two  speeches  were  read  to  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his 
library  at  the  White  House,  a  room  to  which  he  some- 
times retired.  He  was  moved  by  the  picture  which  Love- 
joy  drew.  The  tremendous  responsibilities  growing  out  of 
the  slavery  question ,  how  he  ought  to  treat  those  sons 
of  "unrequited  toil,"  were  questions  sinking  deeper  and  ' 
deeper  into  his  heart.  With  a  purpose  firmly  to  follow 
the  path  of  duty,  as  God  should  give  him  to  see  his  duty, 
he  earnestly  sought  the  divine  guidance. 

Speaking  afterward  of  Emancipation,  Mr.  Lincoln  said : 
"When,  in  March,  May,  and  July,  1862,  I  made  earnest 
and  successive  appeals  to  the  Border  States  to  favor  com- 
pensated emancipation,  I  believed  the  indispensable  ne- 
cessity for  military  emancipation  and  arming  the  blacks 
would  come,  unless  averted  by  that  measure.  They  de- 
clined the  proposition  and  I  was  in  my  best  judgment 
driven  to  the  alternative  of  either  surrendering  the  Union 

O 

or   issuing   the  Emancipation   Proclamation."' 

Before  issuing  the  proclamation,  he  had  appealed  to  the 

*See  Letter  of  the  President  to  A.  G  Hodges,  dated  April  4,  1864. 


36  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

Border  States  to  adopt  gradual  emancipation.  His  appeal  is 
one  of  the  most  earnest  and  eloquent  papers  in  all  history. 
"  Our  country,"  said  he,  "  is  in  great  peril,  demanding  the 
loftiest  views  and  boldest  action  to  bring  a  speedy  relief; 
once  relieved,  its  form  of  government  is  saved  to  the  world, 
its  beloved  history  and  cherished  memories  are  vindicated, 
and  its  future  fully  assured  and  rendered  inconceivably 
grand." 

The  appeal  was  received  by  some  with  apathy,  by  others 
with  caviling  and  opposition,  and  was  followed  by  action  on 
the  part  of  none.  Meanwhile  his  friends  urged  emancipa- 
tion. They  declared  there  could  be  no  permanent  peace 
while  slavery  lived.  "  Seize,"  cried  they,  "  the  thunderbolt  of 
Liberty,  and  shatter  Slavery  to  atoms,  and  then  the  Republic 
will  live."  After  the  great  battle  of  Antietam,  the  Presi- 
dent called  his  cabinet  together,  and  announced  to  them  that 

O  ' 

"  in  obedience  to  a  solemn  vow  to  God"  he  was  about  to  issue 
the  edict  of  Freedom. 

The  proclamation  came,  modestly,  sublimely,  reverently  the 
great  act  was  done.  "  Sincerely  believing  it  to  be  an  act  of 
justice,  warranted  by  the  Constitution,  upon  military  neces- 
sity, he  invoked  upon  it  the  considerate  judgment  of  man- 
kind and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God.1' 

On  the  first  of  January,  1863,  the  Executive  mansion,  as  i- 
usual  on  New  Year's  Day,  was  crowded  with  the  officials, 
foreign  and  domestic,  of  the  National  Capital ;  the  men  of 

• 

mark  of  the  army  and  navy  and  from  civil  life  crowded 
around  the  care-worn  President,  to  express  their  kind  wishes 
for  him  personally,  and  their  prayers  for  the  future  of  the 
country. 

During  the  reception,  after  he  had  been  shaking  hands 
with  hundreds,  a  secretary  hastily  entered  and  told  him  the 


THE   PROCLAMATION.  37 

Proclamation  (the  final  proclamation)  was  ready  for  his  signa- 
ture. Leaving  the  crowd,  he  went  to  his  office,  taking  up  a 
pen,  attempting  to  write,  and  was  astonished  to  find  he  could 
not  control  the  muscles  of  his  hand  and  arm  sufficiently  to 
write  his  name.  He  said  to  me,  "  I  paused,  and  a  feeling  of 
superstition,  a  sense  of  the  vast  responsibility  of  the  act, 
came  over  me ;  then,  remembering  that  my  arm  had  been  well- 
nigh  paralyzed  by  two  hours1  of  hand-shaking,  I  smiled  at  my 
superstitious  feeling,  and  wrote  my  name." 

This  Proclamation,  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
Magna  Charta,  these  be  great  landmarks,  each  indicating  an 
advance  to  a  higher  and  more  Christian  civilization.  Upon 
these  will  the  historian  linger,  as  the  stepping-stones  toward 
a  higher  plane  of  existence.  From  this  time  the  war  meant 
universal  liberty.  When,  in  June,  1858,  at  his  home  in 
Springfield,  Lincoln  startled  the  country  by  the  announcement, 
"  this  nation  can  not  endure  half  slave,  and  half  free"  and 
when  he  concluded  that  remarkable  speech  by  declaring,  with 
uplifted  eye  and  the  inspired  voice  of  a  prophet,  "  we  shall 
not  fail  if  we  stand  firm,  we  shall  not  fail,  wise  councils  may 
accelerate  or  mistakes  delay,  but  sooner  or  later  the  victory  is 
sure  to  come,"  he  looked  to  years  of  peaceful  controversy  and 
final  triumph  through  the  ballot-Jbox.  He  anticipated  no 
war,  and  he  did  not  foresee,  unless  in  those  mysterious,  dim 
shadows,  which  sometimes  startle  by  half  revealing  the 
future,  his  own  elevation  to  the  presidency ;  he  little  dreamed 
that  he  was  to  be  the  instrument  in  the  hands  of  God  to 
speak  those  words  which  should  emancipate  a  race  and  free 
his  country ! 

I  have  not  space  to  follow  the  movements  of  the  armies  ; 
the  long,  sad  campaigns  of  the  grand  army  of  the  Potomac 
under  McClellan,  Pope,  Burnsicle^  Hooker,  Meade ;  nor  the 


38  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

varying  fortunes  of  war  in  the  great  Valley  of  the  Mississippi 
under  Freemont,  and  Halleck,  and  Buell.  Armies  had  not 
only  to  be  organized,  but  educated  and  trained,  and  especially 
did  the  President  have  to  search  for  and  find  those  fitted  for 
high  command. 

Ultimately  he  found  such  and  placed  them  at  the  head  of 
the  armies.  Up  to  1863,  there  had  been  vast  expenditures 
of  blood  and  treasure,  and,  although  great  successes  had  been 
achieved  and  progress  made,  yet  there  had  been  so  many  dis- 
asters and  grievous  failures,  that  the  hopes  of  the  insurgents 
of  final  success  were  still  confident.  With  all  the  great  vic- 
tories in  the  South,  and  Southwest,  by  land  and  on  the  sea, 
the  Mississippi  was  still  closed.  The  President  opened  the 
campaign  of  1863  with  the  determination  of  accomplishing 
two  great  objects,  first  to  get  control  of  and  open  the  Missis- 
sippi ;  second  to  destroy  the  army  of  Virginia  under  Lee,  and 
sieze  upon  the  rebel  capital.  By  the  capture  of  Vicksburg, 
and  the  fall  of  Port  Hudson,  the  first  and  primary  object  of 
the  campaign  was  realized. 

"  The  '  Father  of  Waters '  again  went  unvexed  to  the  sea. 
Thanks  to  the  great  Northwest  for  it,  nor  yet  wholly  to  them. 
Three  hundred  miles  up  they  met  New  England,  Empire, 
Keystone,  and  Jersey,  hewing  their  way  right  and  left.  The 
army  South,  too,  in  more  colors  than  one,  lent  a  helping 
hand."  *  While  the  gallant  armies  of  the  West  were  achieving 
these  victories,  operations  in  the  East  were  crowned  by  the 
decisively  important  triumph  at  Gettysburg.  Let  us  pass  over 
the  scenes  of  conflict,  on  the  sea  and  on  the  land,  at  the  East 
and  at  the  West,  and  come  to  that  touching  incident  in  the 
life  of  Lincoln,  the  consecration  of  the  battle-field  of  Gettys- 
burg as  a  National  cemetery. 

*  See  letter  of  if  r.  Lincoln  to  State  Convention  of  Illinois. 


GETTYSBURG.  39 


GETTYSBURG. 

Here,  late  in  the  autumn  of  that  year  of  battles,  a  portion 
of  that  battle-ground  was  to  be  consecrated  as  the  last  resting- 
place  of  those  who  there  gave  their  lives  that  the  Republic 
might  live. 

There  were  gathered  there  the  President,  his  Cabinet, 
members  of  Congress,  Governors  of  States,  and  a  vast  and 
brilliant  assemblage  of  officers,  soldiers,  and  citizens,  with 
solemn  and  impressive  ceremonies  to  consecrate  the  earth  to 
its  pious  purpose.  New  England's,  most  distinguished  orator 
and  scholar  was  selected  to  pronounce  the  oration.  The 
address  of  Everett  was  worthy  of  the  occasion.  When  the 
elaborate  oration  was  finished,  the  tall,  homely  form  of  Lin- 
coln arose ;  simple,  rude,  majestic,  slowly  he  stepped  to  the 
front  of  the  stage,  drew  from  his  pocket  a  manuscript,  and 
commenced  reading  that  wonderful  address,  which  an  English 
scholar  and  statesman  has  pronounced  the  finest  in  the  En- 
glish language.  The  polished  periods  of  Everett  had  fallen 
somewhat  coldly  upon  the  ear,  but  Lincoln  had  not  finished  the 
first  sentence  before  the  magnetic  influence  of  a  grand  idea 
eloquently  uttered  by  a  sympathetic  nature,  pervaded  the  vast 
assemblage.  He  said:— 

"  Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers  brought  forth 
on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  Liberty,  and  dedi- 
cated to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

"  Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  nation,  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can 
long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 
We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final 
resting-place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that 


40  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF   LINCOLN. 

nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that 
we  should  do  this. 

"  But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can  not  dedicate — we  can  not 
consecrate — we  can  not  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men, 
living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it  far 

O  '  OO 

above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will 
little  note,  nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can 
never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living, 
rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  which 
they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced. 

"  It  is,  rather,  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task 
remaining  before  us,  that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take 
increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last 
fall  measure  of  devotion,  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain :  that  this  nation, 
under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom :  and  that 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people, 
shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

He  was  so  absorbed  with  the  heroic  sacrifices  of  the 
soldiers  as  to  be  utterly  unconscious  that  he  was  the  great 
actor  in  the  drama,  and  that  his  simple  words  would  live  as 
long  as  the  memory  of  the  heroism  he  there  commemorated. 

Closing  his  brief  address  amidst  the  deepest  emotions  of 
the  crowd,  he  turned  to  Everett  and  congratulated  him  upon 
his  success.  "  Ah,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  said  the  orator,  "  I  would 
gladly  exchange  my  hundred  pages  for  your  twenty  lines." 

1864. 

On  the  first  of  January,  1864,  Mr.  Lincoln  received  his 
friends  as  was  usual  on  New  Year's  day,  and  the  improved 
prospects  of  the  country,  made  it  a  day  of  congratulation. 


LIEUTENANT-GENERAL    GRANT.  41 

The  decisive  victories  East  and  West  enlivened  and  made 
"buoyant  and  hopeful  the  spirits  of  all.  One  of  the  most 
devoted  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln  calling  upon  him,  after  ex- 
changing congratulations  over  the  progress  of  the  Union 
armies  during  the  past  year,  said  :— 

"  I  hope,  Mr.  President,  one  year  from  to-day,  I  may  have 
the  pleasure  of  congratulating  you  on  the  consummation  of 
three  events  which  seem  now  very  probable." 

"  What  are  they  ?"  said  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"First,  That  the  rebellion  may  be  completely  crushed. 
Second,  That  slavery  may  be  entirely  destroyed,  and  pro- 
hibited forever  throughout  the  Union.  Third,  That  Abraham 
Lincoln  may  have  been  triumphantly  re-elected  President  of 
the  United  States." 

"  I  would  be  very  glad,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  a  twinkle 
in  his  eye,  "to  compromise,  by  securing  the  success  of  the 
first  two  propositions." 


LIEUTENANT-GENERAL    GRANT, 

On  the  22d  of  February,  1864,  President  Lincoln  nomi- 
nated General  U.  S.  Grant  as  Lieutenant-General  of  all  the 
armies  of  the  United  States,  and  on  the  9th  of  March,  at 
the  White  House,  he,  in  person,  presented  the  victorious 
General  with  his  commission,  and  sent  him  forth  to  consum- 
mate with  the  armies  of  the  East,  his  world-renowned 
successes  at  the  West.  Then  followed  the  memorable  cam- 
paign of  1804-5.  Sherman's  brilliant  Atlanta  campaign; 
Sheridan's  glorious  career  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shenandoah ; 
Thomas's  victories  in  Tennessee,  the  triumph  at  Look-out 
Mountain ;  Sherman's  "  Grand  march  to  the  sea,"  the  fall  of 


42  SKETCH    OF   THE   LIFE    OF   LINCOLN. 

Mobile,  the  capture  of  Fort  Fisher,  and  Wilmington,  indicat- 
ing the  near  approach  of  peace  through  war.  In  the  midst 
of  these  successes,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  triumphantly  re-elected, 
the  people  thereby  stamping  upon  his  administration  their 
grateful  approval.  At  the  session  of  Congress,  of  1864-5,  he 
urged  the  adoption  of  an  amendment  of  the  Constitution 
abolishing  and  prohibiting  slavery  forever  throughout  the 
Republic,  thereby  consummating  his  own  great  work  of 
Emancipation. 

CONSTITUTIONAL    AMENDMENT    ABOLISH- 
ING   SLAVERY. 

As  the  great  leader  in  the  overthrow  of  slavery,  he  had 
seen  his  action  sanctioned  by  an  emphatic  majority  of  the 
people,  and  now  the  constitutional  majority  of  two-thirds  of 
both  branches  of  Congress  had'  voted  to  submit  to  the  States 
this  amendment  of  the  organic  law. 

Illinois,  the  home  of  Lincoln,  as  was  fit,  took  the  lead  in 
ratifying  this  amendment,  and  other  States  rapidly  followed, 
until  more  than  the  requisite  number  was  obtained,  and  the 
amendment  adopted.  Meanwhile,  military  successes  con- 
tinued, until  the  victory  over  slavery  and  rebellion  was  won. 

LINCOLN'S    SECOND    INAUGURATION. 

It  was  known,  by  a  dispatch  received  at  the  Capitol  at 
midnight,  on  the  3d  of  March,  1865,  that  Lee  had  sought  an 
interview  with  Grant,  to  arrange  terms  of  surrender.  On  the 
next  day  Lincoln  again  stood  on  the  eastern  colonnade  of  the 
Capitol,  again  to  swear  fidelity  to  the  Republic,  her  Constitu- 
tion, and  laws ;  but,  how  changed  the  scene  form  his  first  in- 


SECOND   INAUGURAL.  43 

auguration.  No  traitors  now  occupied  liigli  places  under  the 
Government.  Crowds  of  citizens  and  soldiers  who  would 
have  died  for  their  beloved  Chief  Magistrate  now  thronged 

o  o 

the  area.  Liberty  loyalty,  and  victory  had  crowned  the 
eagles  of  our  armies.  No  conspirators  were  now  mingling  in  the 
crowd,  unless  perchance  the  assassin  Booth  might  have  been 
lurking  there.  Many  patriots  and  statesmen  were  in  their 
graves.  Douglas  was  dead,  and  Ellsworth,  and  Baker,  and 
McPherson,  and  Reynolds,  and  Wadsworth,  and  a  host  of  mar- 
tyrs, had  given  their  lives  that  liberty  and  the  Republic  might 
triumph.  It  was  a  very  touching  spectacle  to  see  the  long 
lines  of  invalid  and  wounded  soldiers,  from  the  great  hospitals 
about  Washington,  some  on  crutches,  some  who  had  lost  an 
arm,  many  pale  from  unhealed  wounds,  who  gathered  to  wit- 
ness the  scene.  As  Lincoln  ascended  the  platform,  and  his 
tall  form,  towering  above  all  his  associates,  was  recognized, 
cheers  and  shouts  of  welcome  filled  the  air,  and  not  until  he 
raised  his  arm  motioning  for  silence,  could  the  acclamations 
be  hushed.  He  paused  a  moment,  looked  over  the  scene,  and 
still  hesitated.  What  thronging  memories  passed  through  his 
mind !  Here,  four  years  before,  he  had  stood  pleading,  oh, 
how  earnestly,  for  peace.  But,  even  while  he  pleaded,  the 
rebels  took  up  the  sword,  and  he  was  forced  to  "  accept  war? 

Now  four  long,  bloody,  weary  years  of  devastating  war 
had  passed,  and  those  who  made  the  war  were  everywhere 
discomfited,  and  being  overthrown.  That  barbarous  institu- 
tion which  had  caused  the  war,  had  been  destroyed,  and  the 
dawn  of  peace  already  brightened  the  sky.  Such  the  scene, 
and  such  the  circumstances  under  which  Lincoln  pronounced 
his  second  Inaugural,  a  speech  which  has  no  parallel  since 
Christ's  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

Who  shall  say  that  I  am  irreverent  when  I  declare,  that 


44  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

the  passage,  "  Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray  that 
this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away  !  yet,  if 
God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 
bondsmen's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil 
shall  be  sunk,  and  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  by  the  lash, 
shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said 
three  thousand  years  ago,  so  it  must  be  said  now,  that 
the  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  alto- 
gether," could  only  have  been  inspired  by  that  Holy  Book, 
which  daily  he  read,  and  from  which  he  ever  sought 
guidance  ? 

Where,  but  from  the  teachings  of  Christ,  could  he  have 
learned  that  charity  in  which  he  so  unconsciously  described 
his  own  moral  nature, "  With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity 
for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the 
right,  let  us  finish  the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's 
wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  hath  borne  the  battle,  and  for 
his  widow  and  his  orphans,  to  do  all  Avhich  may  achieve  a 
just  and  lasting  peace,  among  ourselves  and  among  all 
nations." 

E^TD  OF  THE  WAR. 

And  now  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  his  whole  attention  to 
the  movements  of  the  armies,  which,  as  he  confidently 
hoped,  were  on  the  eve  of  final  and  complete  triumph. 
On  the  27th  of  March  he  visited  the  head-quarters  of 
General  Grant,  at  City  Point,  to  concert  with  his  most 
trusted  military  chiefs  the  final  movements  against 
Lee,  and  Johnston.  Grant  was  still  at  bay  before 
Petersburg.  Sherman  with  his  veterans,  after  occupying 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina,  had  reached  Goldsboro', 
North  Carolina,  on  his  victorious  march  north.  It  was 


LINCOLN,    GRANT,    AND    SHERMAN.  45 

the  hope  and  purpose  of  the  two  great  leaders,  whose 
generous  friendship  for  each  other  made  them  ever  like 
brothers,  now  and  there  to  crush  the  armies  of  Lee  and 
Johnston,  and  finish  the  "job." 

An  artist  has  worthily  painted  the  scene  of  the 
meeting  of  Lincoln  and  his  cabinet,  when  he  first 
announced  and  read  to  them  his  proclamation  of  Emancipa- 
tion. Another  artist  is  now  recording  for  the  American 
people  the  scene  of  this  memorable  meeting  of  the 
President  and  the  Generals,  which  took  place  in  the 
cabin  of  the  steamer  "River  Queen,"  lying  at  the  dock 
in  the  James  River.  Three  men  more  unlike  personally 
and  mentally,  and  yet  of  more  distinguished  ability,  have 
rarely  been  called  together.  Although  so  entirely  unlike, 
each  was  a  type  of  American  character,  and  all  had 
peculiarities  not  only  American,  but  Western. 

Lincoln's  towering  form  had  acquired  dignity  by  his 
great  deeds,  and  the  great  ideas  to  which  he  had  given 
expression.  His  rugged  features,  lately  so  deeply  fur- 
rowed with  care  and  responsibility,  were  now  radiant  with 
hope  and  confidence.  He  met  the  two  great  leaders  with 
grateful  cordiality ;  with  clear  intelligence  he  grasped  the 
military  situation,  and  listened  with  eager  confidence  to 
their  details  of  the  final  moves  which  should  close  this 
terrible  game  of  war. 

Contrasting,  with  the  giant-like  stature  of  Lincoln,  was 
the  short,  sturdy,  resolute  form  of  the  hero  of  Fort  Donel- 
son  and  Vicksburg,  so  firm  and  iron-like,  every  feature  of 
his  face  and  every  attitude  and  movement  so  quiet,  yet 
all  expressive  of  inflexible  will  and  never  faltering  determi- 
nation, "to  fight  it  out  on  this  line." 

There,    too,  was  Sherman,    with  his    broad   intellectual 


46  SKETCH    OF    THE   LIFE    OF   LINCOLN. 

forehead,  his  restless  eye,  his  nervous  energy,  his  sharply 
outlined  features  bronzed  by  that  magnificent  campaign 
from  Chattanooga  to  Atlanta  and  from  Atlanta  to  the  Sea, 
and  now  fresh  from  the  conquest  of  Georgia  and  South 
Carolina.  On  the  eve  of  final  triumph,  Lincoln,  with 
characteristic  humanity  deplored  the  necessity  which  all 
realized,  of  one  'more  hard  and  deadly  battle.  They 
separated,  Sherman  hastening  to  his  post,  and  Grant  com- 
menced those  brilliant  movements  which  in  ten  days  ended 
the  war.  Now  followed  in  rapid  succession  the  fall  of 
.Richmond,  the  surrender  of  Lee,  the  capitulation  of  John- 
ston and  his  army,  the  capture  of  Jefferson  Davis,  and 
the  final  overthrow  of  the  rebellion. 

The  Union  troops,  on  the  morning  of  the  4th  of  April, 
entered  the  rebel  capital.  Among  the  exulting  columns  which 
followed  the  eagles  of  the  Republic,  were  some  regiments  of 
negro  soldiers,  who  marched  through  the  streets  of  Richmond 
singing  their  favorite  song  of  "  John  Brown's  soul  is  marching 


on." 


On  the  day  of  its  capture,  President  Lincoln,  with  Admiral 
Porter,  visited  Richmond.  Leading  his  youngest  son,  a  lad, 
by  the  hand,  he  walked  from  the  James  River  landing  to  the 
house  just  vacated  by  the  rebel  President.  From  the  time 
of  the  issuing  of  his  proclamation  to  this,  his  triumphant 
entry  into  the  rebel  capital,  he  had  been  ever  ready  and 
anxious  for  peace.  To  all  the  world  he  had  proclaimed,  what 
he  said  so  emphatically  to  the  rebel  emissaries  at  Hampton 
Roads.  "There  are  just  two  indispensable  conditions  of 
peace,  national  unity,  and  national  liberty."  "  The  national 
authority  must  be  restored  through  all  the  States,  and  I  will 
never  recede  from  my  position  on  the  slavery  question."  He 
would  never  violate  the  national  faith,  and  now  God  had 


EEVIEW    AT    WASHINGTON.  47 

crowned  his  efforts  with  complete  success.  He  entered 
Richmond  as  a  conqueror,  but  as  its  preserver  he  issued  no 
decree  of  proscription  or  confiscation,  and  to  all  the  South 
his  policy  was,  "  with  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for 
all,  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gave  him  to  see  the 
right,  he  sought  to  finish  the  work,  and  do  all  which  should 
achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace." 

On  the  9th  of  April  he  returned  to  Washington,  and  had 
scarcely  arrived  at  the  White  House  before  the  news  of  the 
surrender  of  Lee  and  all  his  army  reached  him.  No  language 
can  adequately  describe  the  joy  and  gratitude  which  filled  the 
hearts  of  the  President  and  the  people. 

And  here,  before  the  attempt  is  made  to  sketch  the  dark- 
est and  most  dastardly  crime  in  all  our  annals,  let  us  pause 
for  one  moment  to  mention  that  last  review  on  the  22d  and 
23d  of  May,  of  these  victorious  citizen  soldiers,  who  had  come 
at  the  call  of  the  President,  and  who,  their  work  being  done, 
were  now  to  return  again  to  their  homes  scattered  through- 
out the  country  they  had  saved. 

These  bronzed  and  scarred  veterans  who  had  survived  the 
battle-fields  of  four  years  of  active  war,  whose  field  of  opera- 
tions had  been  a  continent,  the  brave  men  who  had  marched  and 
fought  their  way  from  New  England  and  the  Northwest,  to 
New  Orleans  and  Charleston ;  those  who  had  withstood  and  re- 
pelled the  terrific  charges  of  the  rebels  at  Gettysburg ;  those 
who  had  fought  beneath  and  above  the  clouds  at  Lookout 
Mountain ;  who  had  taken  Fort  Donelson,  Vicksburg,  Atlanta, 
New  Orleans,  Savannah,  Mobile,  Petersburg,  and  Richmond; 
the  triumphal  entry  of  these  heroes  into  the  National  Capital 
of  the  Republic  which  they  had  saved  and  redeemed,  was 
deeply  impressive.  Triumphal  arches,  garlands,  wreaths  of 
flowers,  evergreens,  marked  their  pathway.  Acting  President 


48  SKETCH    OF    THE    LITE    OF    LINCOLN. 

and  Cabinet,  Governors  and  Senators,  ladies,  children,  citizens, 
all  united  to  express  the  nation's  gratitude  to  those  by  whose 
heroism  it  had  been  saved. 

But  there  was  one  great  shadow  over  the  otherwise  bril- 
liant spectacle.  Lincoln,  their  great-hearted  chief,  he  whom 
all  loved  fondly  to  call  their  "  Father  Abraham ;"  he  whose 
heart  had  been  ever  with  them  in  camp,  and  on  the  march,  in 
the  storm  of  battle,  and  in  the  hospital ;  he  had  been  mur- 
dered, stung  to  death,  by  the  fang  of  the  expiring  serpent 
which  these  soldiers  had  crushed.  There  were  many  thou- 
sands of  these  gallant  men  in  Blue,  as  they  filed  past  the 
White  House,  whose  weather-beaten  faces  were  wet  with 
teai*s  of  manly  grief.  How  gladly,  joyfully  would  they  have 
given  their  lives  to  have  saved  his. 

LAST    DAYS    OF    LI^COLJST. 

It  has  been  already  stated  that  Mr.  Lincoln  returned  to 
the  Capital  on  the  9th  of  April;  from  that  day  until  the  14th 
was  a  scene  of  continued  rejoicing,  gratulation,  and  thanks- 
giving to  Almighty  God  who  had  given  to  us  the  victory. 
In  every  city,  town,  village,  and  school  district,  bells  rang, 
salutes  were  fired,  and  the  Union  flag,  now  worshiped  more 
than  ever  by  every  loyal  heart,  waved  from  every  home.  The 
President  was  full  of  hope  and  happiness.  The  clouds  were 
breaking  away,  and  his  genial,  kindly  nature  was  revolving 
plans  of  reconciliation  and  peace.  How  could  he  now  bind 
up  the  wounds  of  his  country  and  obliterate  the  scars  of  the 
war,  and  restore  friendship  and  good  feeling  to  every  section  ? 
These  considerations  occupied  his  thoughts :  there  was  no  bit- 
terness, no  desire  for  revenge.  On  the  morning  of  the  14th, 
Robert  Lincoln,  just  returned  from  the  army,  where,  on  the 
staff  of  General  Grant,  he  had  witnessed  the  surrender  of  Lee, 


THE   ASSASSINATION.  49 

breakfasted  with  his  father,  and  the  happy  hour  was  passed 
in  listening  to  details  of  that  event.  The  day  was  occupied, 
first,  with  an  interview  with  Speaker  Colfax,  then  exchanging 
congratulations  with  a  party  of  old  Illinois  friends,  then  a  cabi- 
net meeting,  attended  by  Gen.  Grant,  at  which  all  remarked 
his  hopeful,  joyous  spirit,  and  all  bear  testimony  that  in  this 
hour  of  triumph,  he  had  no  thought  of  vengeance,  but  his 
mind  was  revolving  the  best  means  of  bringing  back  to  sin- 
cere loyalty,  those  who  had  been  making  war  upon  his  coun- 
try. He  then  drove  out  with  Mrs.  Lincoln  alone,  and  during 
the  drive  he  dwelt  upon  the  happy  prospect  now  before 
them,  and  contrasting  the  gloomy  and  distracting  days  of  the 
war  with  the  peaceful  ones  now  in  anticipation,  and  looking 
beyond  the  term  of  his  Presidency,  he,  in  imagination,  saw 
the  time  when  he  should  return  again  to  his  prairie  home, 
meet  his  old  friends,  and  resume  his  old  mode  of  life.  In  fancy, 
he  was  again  in  his  old  law  library,  and  before  the  courts : 
with  these  were  mingled  visions  of  a  prairie  farm,  and  once 
more  the  plow  and  the  ax  should  become  familiar  to  his 
hand.  Such  were  some  of  the  incidents  and  fancies  of  the 
last  day  of  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


THE    ASSASSINATION. 

From  the  time  of  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the 
Presidency,  many  threats,  public  and  private,  were  made 
of  his  assassination.  An  attempt  to  murder  him  would 
undoubtedly  have  been  made,  in  February,  1861,  on  his 
passage  through  Baltimore,  had  not  the  plot  been 
discovered,  and  the  time  of  his  passage  been  anticipated. 
From  the  day  of  his  inauguration,  he  began  to  recieve 


50  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

letters  threatening  assassination.  He  said :  "  The  first  one 
or  two  made  me  uncomfortable,  but,"  said  he,  smiling, 
"there  is  nothing  like  getting  used  to  things."  He  was 
constitutionally  fearless,  and  came  to  consider  these  letters 
as  idle  threats,  meant  only  to  annoy  him,  and  it  was 
very  difficult  for  his  friends  to  induce  him  to  resort  to 
any  precautions. 

It  was  announced  through  the  press  that  on  the 
evening  of  the  14th  of  April,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  General 
Grant  would  attend  Ford's  Theater.  The  General  did 
not  attend,  but  Mr.  Lincoln,  being  unwilling  to  disappoint 
the  public  expectation,  accompanied  by  Mrs.  Lincoln,  Miss. 
Hams,  and  Major  Rathbone,  was  induced  to  go.  The 
writer  met  him  on  the  portico  of  the  White  House 
just  as  he  was  about  to  enter  his  carriage,  exchanged 
greetings,  with  him,  and  will  never  forget  the  radiant, 
happy  expression  of  his  countenance,  and  the  kind,  genial 
tones  of  his  voice,  as  we  parted  fat'  the  night  as  we 
then  thought — -forever  in  this  world,  as  it  resulted. 

The  President  was  received,  as  he  always  was,  by 
acclamations.  When  he  reached  the  door  of  his  box, 
he  turned,  and  smiled,  and  bowed  in  acknowledgment 
of  the  hearty  greeting  which  welcomed  him,  and  then 
followed  Mrs.  Lincoln  into  the  box.  This  was  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  stage.  In  the  corner  nearest  the  stage 
sat  Miss  Hams,  next  her  Mrs.  Lincoln.  Mr.  Lincoln 
sat  nearest  the  entrance,  Major  Rathbone  being  seated  on 
a  sofa,  in  the  back  part  of  the  box.  The  theater,  and 
especially  the  box  occupied  by  the  President's  party,  was 
most  beautifully  draped  with  the  national  colors.  WTrile 
the  play  was  in  progress,  John  Wilkes  Booth  visited  the 
theater  behind  the  scenes,  left  a  horse  ready  saddled  in  the 


JOHJST   WILKES   BOOTH.  51 

alley  behind  the  building,  leaving  a  door  opening  to  this  alley 
ready  for  his  escape. 

In  the  midst  of  the  play,  at  the  hour  of  10.30,  a  pistol 
shot,  sharp  and  clear,  is  heard  !  a  man  with  a  bloody  dagger 
in  his  hand  leaps  from  the  President's  box  to  the  stage 
exclaiming,  "  Sic  semper  tyrannis"  " the  South  is  avenged." 
As  the  assassin  struck  the  stage,  the  spur  on  his  boot  having 
caught  in  the  folds  of  the  flag,  he  fell  to  his  knee.  Instantly 
rising,  he  brandished  his  dagger,  darted  across  the  stage,  out 
of  the  door  he  had  left  open,  mounted  his  horse  and  galloped 
away.  The  audience,  startled  and  stupefied  with  horror,  were 
for  a  few  seconds  spell-bound.  Some  one  cries  out  in  the 
crowd,  "  John  Wilkes  Booth  /"  This  man,  an  actor,  familiar 
with  the  locality,  after  arranging  for  his  escape,  had  passed 
round  to  the  front  of  the  theater,  entered,  passed  in  to  the 
President's  box,  entered  at  the  open  and  unguarded  door,  and 
stealing  up  behind  the  President,  who  was  intent  upon  the 
play,  placed  his  pistol  near  the  back  of  the  head  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
and  fired.  The  ball  penetrated  the  brain,  and  the  President 
fell  upon  his  face  mortally  wounded,  unconscious  and  speechless 
from  the  first.  Major  Kathbone  had  attempted  to  seize  Booth 
as  he  rushed  past  toward  the  stage,  and  received  from  the 
assassin  a  severe  cut  in  the  arm. 

No  words  can  describe  the  anguish  and  horror  of  Mrs. 
Lincoln.  The  scene  was  heart-rending ;  she  prayed  for  death 

to  relieve  her  suffering.     The  insensible  form  of  the  President 

~ 

vr::.s  removed  across  the  street  to  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Peterson. 
Robert  Lincoln  soon  reached  the  scene,  and  the  members  of 
the  cabinet  and  personal  friends  crowded  around  the  place  of 
the  fearful  tragedy.  And  there  the  strong  constitution  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  struggled  with  death,  until  twenty-two  minutes  past 
seven  the  next  morning,  when  his  heart  ceased  to  beat.  The 


52  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

scene  during  that  long  fearful  night  of  woe,  at  the  house  of 
Peterson,  beggars  description. 

News  of  the  appalling  deed  spread  through  the  city,  and  it 
was  found  necessary  to  restrain  the  anxious,  weeping  people 
by  a  double  guard  around  the  house.  The  surgeons  from  the 
first  examination  of  the  wound,  pronounced  it  mortal ;  and 
the  shock  and  the  agony  of  that  terrible  night  to  Mrs.  Lincoln 
was  enough  to  distract  the  reason,  and  break  the  heart  of  the 
most  self-controlled.  Robert  Lincoln  sought,  by  manly  self- 
mastery  to  control  his  own  grief  and  soothe  his  mother, 
and  aid  her  to  sustain  her  overwhelming  sorrow. 

When  at  last,  the  noble  heart  ceased  to  beat,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Gurley,  in  the  presence  of  the  family,  the  household,  and 
those  friends  of  the  President  who  were  present,  knelt  down, 
and  touchingly  prayed  the  Almighty  Father,  to  aid  and 
strengthen  the  family  and  friends  to  bear  their  terrible 
sorrow. 

I  will  not  attempt  with  feeble  pen  to  sketch  the 
scenes  of  that  terrible  night ;  I  leave  that  for  the  pencil  of  the 
artist ! 

As  has  been  said,  the  name  of  the  assassin  was  John 
Wilkes  Booth  !  He  was  shot  by  Boston  Corbett,  a  soldier  on 
the  21st  of  April. 

ATTEMPTED  ASSASSINATION  OF  SECRETARY 

SEWARD. 

On  the  same  night  of  the  assassination  of  the  President, 
an  accomplice  of  Booth  attempted  to  murder  Mr.  Seward,  the 
Secretary  of  State,  in  his  own  house,  while  confined  to  his 
bed  from  severe  injuries  received  by  being  thrown  from  his 
carnage.  He  was  terribly  mangled ;  and  his  life  was  saved 
by  the  heroic  efforts  of  his  sons  and  daughter  and  a  nurse, 


THE    NATION    IN   MOURNING.  53 

whose  name  was  Robinson.  Some  of  the  accomplices  of 
Booth  were  arrested,  tried,  convicted,  and  hung ;  but  all  were 
the  mere  tools  and  instruments  of  the  Conspirators.  Mystery 
and  darkness  yet  hang  over  the  chief  instigators  of  this 
most  cowardly  murder :  none  can  say  whether  the  chief  con- 
spirators will  ever,  in  this  world,  be  dragged  to  light  and 
punishment. 

The  terrible  news  of  the  death  of  Lincoln  was,  on  the 
morning  of  the  15th,  borne  by  telegraph  to  every  portion  of 
the  Republic.  Coming,  as  it  did,  in  the  midst  of  universal 
joy,  no  language  can  picture  the  horror  and  grief  of  the 
people  on  its  reception.  A  whole  nation  wept.  Persons  who 
had  not  heard  the  news,  coming  into  crowded  cities,  were 
struck  with  the  strange  aspect  of  the  people.  All  business 
was  suspended ;  gloom,  sadness,  grief,  sat  upon  every  face. 
The  flag,  which  had  everywhere,  from  every  spire  and  mast- 
head, roof,  and  tree,  and  public  building,  been  floating  in  glorious 
triumph,  was  now  lowered ;  and,  as  the  hours  of  that  dreary 
loth  of  April  passed  on,  the  people,  by  common  impulse,  each 
family  by  itself,  commenced  draping  their  houses  and  public 
buildings  in  mourning,  and  before  night  the  whole  nation  was 
shrouded  in  black. 

There  were  no  classes  of  people  in  the  Republic  whose 
grief  was  more  demonstrative  than  that  of  the  soldiers  and 
the  freedmen.  The  vast  armies,  not  yet  disbanded,  looked 
upon  Lincoln  as  their  father.  They  knew  his  heart  had  fol- 
lowed them  in  all  their  campaigns  and  marches  and  battles. 
Grief  and  vengeance  filled  their  hearts.  But  the  poor  negroes 
everywhere  wept  and  sobbed  .over  a  loss  which  they  instinct- 
ively felt  was  to  them  irreparable.  On  the  Sunday  following 
his  death,  the  whole  people  gathered  to  their  places  of  public 
worship,  and  mingled  their  tears  together  over  a  bereavement 


54  SKETCH    OF   THE   LIFE    OF    LIXCOLX. 

which,  every  one  felt  like  the  loss  of  a  father  or  a  brother. 
The  remains  of  the  President  were  taken  to  the  White 
House.  On  the  17th,  on  Monday,  a  meeting  of  the  members 
of  Congress  then  in  Washington,  was  held  at  the  Capitol,  to 
make  arrangements  for  the  funeral.  This  meeting  named  a 
committee  of  one  member  from  each  State  and  Territory,  and 
the  whole  Congressional  delegation  from  Illinois,  as  a  Con- 
gressional Committee  to  attend  the  remains  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
their  final  resting-place  in  Illinois.  Senator  Sumner  and 
others  desired  that  his  body  should  be  placed  under  the  dome 
of  the  Capitol  at  Washington.  It  was  stated  that  a  vault 
had  been  prepared  there  for  the  remains  of  Washington,  but 
had  never  been  used,  because  the  Washington  family  and 
Virginia  desired  them  to  remain  in  the  family  vault  at  Mount 
Vernon.  It  was  said  it  would  be  peculiarly  appropriate  for 
the  remains  of  Lincoln  to  be  deposited  under  the  dome  of  the 
Capitol  of  the  Republic  he  had  saved  and  redeemed. 

The  funeral  took  place  on  Wednesday,  the  19th.  The 
services  were  held  in  the  East  Room  of  the  Executive  Mansion. 
It  was  a  bright,  genial  day — typical  of  the  kind  and  genial 
nature  of  him  whom  a  nation  was  so  deeply  mourning. 

After  the  sad  ceremonies  at  the  National  Capital,  the 
remains  of  the  President  and  of  his  beloved  son  Willie,  who 
died  at  the  White  House  during  his  presidency,  were  placed 
on  a  funeral  car,  and  started  on  its  long  pilgrimage  to  his  old 
home  in  Illinois,  and  it  was  arranged  that  the  train  should 
take  nearly  the  same  route  as  that  by  which  he  had  come  from 
Springfield  to  Washington  in  assuming  the  Executive  Chair. 

And  now  the  people  of  every  State,  city,  town,  and  ham- 
let, came  with  uncovered  heads,  with  streaming  eyes,  with 
their  offerings  of  wreaths  and  flowers,  to  witness  the  passing 
train.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  scenes.  Minute-guns, 


FUNEEAL    CEEEMONIES.  55 

the  tolling  of  bells,  music,  requiems,  dirges,  military  and  civic 
displays,  draped  flags,  black  covering  every  public  building 
and  private  house,  everywhere  indicated  the  pious  desire  of 
the  people  to  do  honor  to  the  dead :  two  thousand  miles, 
along  which  every  house  was   draped   in   black,  and  from 
Avhich,  everywhere,  hung   the   national  colors  in  mourning. 
The  funeral  ceremonies  at  Baltimore  were  peculiarly  impress- 
ive :    nowhere  were   the   manifestations   of  grief  more   uni- 
versal ;   but  the  sorrow  of  the  negroes,  who  thronged  the 
streets  in  thousands,  and  hung  like  a  dark  fringe  upon  the 
long   procession,   was   especially   impressive.      Their   coarse, 
homely  features  were   convulsed  with   a   grief  which   they 
could  not   control;   their  emotional  natures,  excited  by  the 
scene,  and  by  each  other,  until  sobs  and  cries  and  tears,  rolling 
down  their  black  faces,  told  how  deeply  they  felt  their  loss. 
When  the  remains  reached  Philadelphia,  a  half  million  of 
people  were  in  the  streets,  to  do  honor  to  all  that  was  left  of 
him,  who,  in  old  Independence  Hall,  four  years  before,  had  de- 
clared that  he  would  sooner  die,  sooner  be  assassinated,  than 
give  up  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
He  had  been  assassinated  because  he  would  not  give  them  up. 
All  felt,  when  the  remains  were  placed  in  that  historic  room, 
surrounded  by  the  memories  of  the  great  men  of  the  Past, 
whose  portraits  from  the  walls  looked  down  upon  the  scene, 
that,  a  peer  of  the  best  and  greatest  of  the  revolutionary  wor- 
thies was  now  added  to  the  list  of  those  who  had  served  the 
Republic. 

Through  New  Jersey,  New  York,  Ohio,  Indiana,  to 
Illinois,  all  the  people  followed  the  funeral  train  as  mourners, 
but  when  the  remains  reached  his  own  State,  where  he  had 
been  personally  known  to  every  one,  where  the  people  had  all 
heard  him  on  the  stump  and  in  court,  every  family 


56  SKETCH    OF   THE   LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

mourned  him  as  a  father  and  a  brother.  The  train  reached 
Springfield  on  the. 3d  of  May ;  and  the  corpse  was  taken  to 
Oak  Ridge  Cemetery,  and  there,  among  his  old  friends  and 
neighbors,  his  clients,  and  constituents,  surrounded  by 
representatives  from  the  Army  and  Navy,  with  delegations 
from  every  State,  with  all  the  people,-the  world  for  his 
mourners — was  he  buried. 

PERSONAL  SKETCHES  OF  LINCOLN".* 

In  the  remaining  pages,  I  shall  attempt  to  give  a  word- 
picture  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  his  person,  his  moral  and  intellectual 
characteristics,  and  some  personal  recollections,  so  as  to  aid  the 
reader,  as  far  as  I  may  be  able,  in  forming  an  ideal  of  the  man. 

Physically,  he  was  a  tall,  spare  man,  six  feet  and  four  inches 
in  height.  He  stooped,  leaning  forward  as  he  walked.  He 
was  very  athletic,  with  long,  sinewy  arms,  large,  bony  hands, 
and  of  great  physical  power.  Many  anecdotes  of  his 
strength  are  given,  which  show  that  it  was  equal  to  that 
of  two  or  three  ordinary  men.  He  lifted  with  ease  five  or 
six  hundred  pounds.  His  legs  and  arms  were  disproportion- 
ately long,  as  compared  with  his  body ;  and  when  he  walked, 
he  swung  his  arms  to  and  fro  more  than  most  men.  When 
seated,  he  did  not  seem  much  taller  than  ordinary  men.  In 
his  movements  there  was  no  grace,  but  an  impression  of 
awkward  strength  and  vigor. 

He  was  naturally  diffident,  and  even  to  the  day  of  his 
death,  when  in  crowds,  and  not  speaking  or  acting,  and 
conscious  of  being  observed,  he  seemed  to  shrink  with 
bashfulness.  When  he  became  interested,  or  spoke,  or 

*  The   substance   of  what   follows  is  from  chapter  29th  of  "  The  History  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  The  Overthrow  of  Slavery,"  by  Isaac  X.  Arnold. 


PERSONAL    DESCRIPTION  57 

listened,  this  appearance  left  him,  and  he  indicated  no  self- 
consciousness.  His  forehead  was  high  and  broad,  his  hair  very 
dark,  nearly  black,  and  rather  stiff  and  coarse,  his  eyebrows 
were  heavy,  his  eyes  dark-gray,  very  expressive  and  varied ; 
now  sparkling  with  humor  and  fun,  and  then  deeply  sad  and 
melancholy  ;  flashing  with  indignation  at  injustice  or  wrong, 
and  then  kind,  genial,  droll,  dreamy  ;  according  to  his  mood. 

His  nose  was  large,  and  clearly  defined  and  well  shaped ; 
cheek-bones  high  and  projecting.  His  mouth  coarse,  but 
firm.  He  was  easily  caricatured — but  difficult  to  represent  as 
he  was,  in  marble  or  on  canvass.  The  best  bust  of  him  is 
that  of  Volk,  which  was  modeled  from  a  cast  taken  from  life  in 
May,  1860,  while  he  was  attending  court  at  Chicago. 

Among  the  best  portraits,  in  the  judgment  of  his  family 
and  intimate  friends,  are  those  of  Carpenter,  in  the  picture  of 
the  Reading  of  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  before  the 
Cabinet,  and  that  of  Marshall. 

He  would  be  instantly  recognized  as  belonging  to  that 
type  of  tall,  thin,  large-boned  men,  produced  in  the  northern 
portion  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  exhibiting  its 
peculiar  characteristics  in  a  most  marked  degree  in  Illinois, 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  In  any  crowd  in  the  United  States, 
he  would  have  been  readily  pointed  out  as  a  Western  man. 
His  stature,  figure,  manner,  voice,  and  accent,  indicated  that 
he  was  of  the  Northwest.  His  manners  were  cordial,  familiar, 
genial ;  always  perfectly  self-possessed,  he  made  ever}7"  one  feel 
at  home,  and  no  one  approached  him  without  being  impressed 
with  his  kindly,  frank  nature,  his  clear,  good  sense,  and  his 
transparent  truthfulness  and  integrity.  There  is  more  or  less 
of  expression  and  character  in  handwriting.  Lincoln's  was 
plain,  simple,  clear,  and  legible,  as  that  of  Washington;  but 
unlike  that  of  Washington,  it  was  without  ornament. 


58  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE    OF   LINCOLN. 

In  endeavoring  to  state  those  qualities  which  gave  him 
success  and  greatness,  among  the  most  important,  it  seems  to 
me,  were  a  supreme  love  of  truth,  and  a  wonderful  capacity 
to  ascertain  it.  Mentally,  he  had  a  perfect  eye  for  truth. 
His  mental  vision  was  clear  and  accurate :  he  saw  things  as 
they  were.  I  mean  that  every  thing  presented  to  his  mind  for 
investigation,  he  saw  divested  of  every  extraneous  circum- 
stance, every  coloring,  association,  or  accident  which  could  mis- 
lead. This  gave  him  at  the  bar  a  sagacity  which  seemed 
almost  instinctive,  in  sifting  the  true  from  the  false,  and  in 
ascertaining  facts ;  and  so  it  was  in  all  things  through  life. 
He  ever  sought  the  real,  the  true,  and  the  right.  He  was  exact, 
carefully  accurate  in  all  his  statements.  He  analyzed  well ;  he 
saw  and  presented  what  lawyers  call  the  very  gist  of  every 
question,  divested  of  all  unimportant  or  accidental  relations, 
so  that  his  statement  was  a  demonstration.  At  the  bar,  his 
exposition  of  his  case,  or  a  question  of  law,  was  so  clear,  that, 
on  hearing  it,  most  persons  were  surprised  that  there  should 
be  any  controversy  about  it.  His  reasoning  powers  were 
keen  and  logical,  and  moved  forward  to  a  demonstration  with 
the  precision  of  mathematics.  What  has  been  said  implies 
that  he  possessed  not  only  a  sound  judgment,  which  brought 
him  to  correct  conclusions,  but  that  he  was  able  so  to  present 
questions  as  to  bring  others  to  the  same  result. 

His  memory  was  capacious,  ready,  and  tenacious.  His 
reading  was  limited  in  extent,  but  his  memory  was  so  ready, 
and  so  retentive,  that  in  history,  poetry,  and  general  litera- 
ture, no  one  ever  remarked  any  deficiency.  As  an  illustration 
of  the  power  of  his  memory,  I  recollect  to  have  once  called 
at  the  White  House,  late  in  his  Presidency,  and  introducing 
to  him  a  Swede  and  a  Norwegian ;  he  immediately  repeated 
a  poem  of  eight  or  ten  verses,  describing  Scandinavian 


FONDNESS    FOB    POETRY.  59 

scenery  and  old  Norse  legends.  In  reply  to  the  expression  of 
their  delight,  he  said  that  he  had  read  and  admired  the  poem 
several  years  before,  and  it  had  entirely  gone  from  him,  but 
seeing  them  recalled  it. 

The  two  books  which  he  read  most  were  the  Bible  and 
Shakespeare.  With  these  he  was  very  familiar,  reading  and 
studying  them  habitually  and  constantly.  He  had  great 
fondness  for  poetry,  and  eloquence,  and  his  taste  and  judg- 
ment in  each  was  exquisite.  Shakespeare  was  his  favorite 
poet ;  Burns  stood  next.  I  know  of  a  speech  of  his  at  a 
Burns  festival,  in  which  he  spoke  at  length  of  Burns's  poems; 
illustrating  what  he  said  by  many  quotations,  showing  perfect 
familiarity  with  and  full  appreciation  of  the  peasant  poet  of 
Scotland.  He  was  extremely  fond  of  ballads,  and  of  simple, 
sad,  and  plaintive  music. 

He  was  a  most  admirable  reader.  He  read  and  repeated 
passages  from  the  Bible  and  Shakespeare  with  great  simplicity 
but  remarkable  expression  and  effect.  Often  when  going  to 
and  from  the  army,  on  steamers  and  in  his  carriage,  he  took  a 
copy  of  Shakespeare  with  him,  and  not  unfrequently  read, 
aloud  to  his  associates.  After  conversing  upon  public  affairs, 
he  would  take  up  his  Shakespeare,  and  addressing  his  compan- 
ions, remark,  "  What  do  you  say  now  to  a  scene  from  Mac- 
beth, or  Hamlet,  or  Julius  Caesar,"  and  then  he  would  read 
aloud,  scene  after  scene,  never  seeming  to  tire  of  the  enjoy- 
ment. 

On  the  last  Sunday  of  his  life,  as  he  was  coming  up  the 
Potomac,  from  his  visit  to  City  Point  and  Richmond,  he 
read  aloud  many  extracts  from  Shakespeare.  Among  others, 
he  read,  with  an  accent  and  feeling  which  no  one  who  heard 
him  will  ever  forget,  extracts  from  Macbeth,  and  among  others 
the  following: — 


60  SKETCH    OF   THE   LIFE    OF   LINCOLN. 

"  Duncan  is  in  his  grave ; 
After  life's  fitful  fever,  he  sleeps  well. 
Treason  has  done  his  worst ;  nor  steel,  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing 
Can  touch  him  farther." 

After  "  treason "  had  " done  his  worst"  the  friends  who 
heard  him  on  that  occasion  remembered  that  he  read  that 
passage  very  slowly  over  twice,  and  with  an  absorbed  and 
peculiar  manner.  Did  he  feel  a  mysterious  presentiment  of 
his  approaching  fate  ? 

His  conversation  was  original,  suggestive,  instructive,  and 
playful;  and,  by  its  genial  humor,  fascinating  and  attractive 
beyond  comparison.  Mirthfulness  and  sadness  were  strongly 
combined  in  him.  His  mirth  was  exuberant,  it  sparkled  in 
jest,  story,  and  anecdote;  and  the  next  moment  those  pecu- 
liarly sad,  pathetic,  melancholy  eyes,  showed  a  man  "  familiar 
with  sorrow,  and  acquainted  with  grief."  I  have  listened  for 
hours  at  his  table,  and  elsewhere,  when  he  has  been  surround- 
ed by  statesmen,  military  leaders,  and  other  distinguished  men 
of  the  nation,  and  I  but  repeat  the  universally  concurring 
verdict  of  all,  in  stating  that  as  a  conversationalist  he  had  no 
equal.  One  might  meet  in  company  with  him  the  most  dis- 
tinguished men,  of  various  pursuits  and  professions,  but  after 
listening  for  two  or  three  hours,  on  separating,  it  was  what 
Lincoln  had  said  that  would  be  remembered.  His  were  the 
ideas  and  illustrations  that  would  not  be  forgotten.  Men 
often  called  upon  him  for  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  him.  I 
have  heard  the  reply  to  an  invitation  to  attend  the  theater, 
"  No,  I  am  going  up  to  the  White  House.  I  would  rather 
hear  Lincoln  talk  for  half  an  hour,  than  attend  the  best 
theater  in  the  world." 

As  a  public  speaker,  without  any  attempt  at  oratorical 
display,  I  think  he  was  the  most  effective  of  any  man  of  his 


LINCOLN    AS    A    SPEAKER    AND    WRITER.  61 

day.  When  he  spoke,  everybody  listened.  It  was  always 
obvious,  before  he  completed  two  sentences,  that  he  had 
something  to  say,  and  it  was  sure  to  be  something  original, 
something  different  from  any  thing  heard  from  others,  or 
which  had  been  read  in  books.  He  impressed  the  hearer  at 
once,  as  an  earnest,  sincere  man,  who  believed  what  he  said. 
To-day,  there  are  more  of  the  sayings  of  Lincoln  repeated  by 
the  people,  more  quotations,  sentences,  and  extracts  from  his 
writings  and  speeches,  familiar  as  "  household  words,"  than 
from  those  of  any  other  American. 

I  know  no  book,  except  the  Bible  and  Shakespeare,  from 
which  so  many  familiar  phrases  and  expressions  have  been 
taken  as  from  his  writings  and  speeches.  Somebody  has 
said,  "  I  care  not  who  makes  the  laws,  if  I  may  write  the 
ballads  of  a  nation."  The  words  of  Lincoln  have  done  more 
in  the  last  six  years  to  mold  and  fashion  the  American  char- 
acter than  those  of  any  other  man,  and  their  influence  has 
been  all  for  truth,  right,  justice,  and  liberty.  Great  as  has 
been  Lincoln's  services  to  the  people,  as  their  President,  his 
influence,  derived  from  his  words  and  his  example,  in  mold- 
ing the  future  national  character,  in  favor  of  justice,  right, 
liberty,  truth,  and  real,  sincere,  unostentatious  reverence  for 
God,  is  scarcely  less  important.  The  Republic  of  the  future, 
the  matured  national  character,  will  be  more  influenced  by 
him  than  by  any  other  man.  This  is  evidence  of  his  great- 
ness, intellectual,  and  still  more,  moral.  In  this  power  of 
impressing  himself  upon  the  people,  he  contrasts  with  many 
other  distinguished  men  in  our  history.  Few  quotations 
from  Jefferson,  or  Adams,  or  Webster,  live  in  the  every-day 
language  of  the  people.  Little  of  Clay  survives ;  not  much 
of  Calhoun,  and  who  can  quote,  off-hand,  half  a  dozen  sen- 
tences from  Douglas?  But  you  hear  Lincoln's  words,  not 


62  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

only  in  every  cabin  and  caucus,  and  in  every  stump  speech,  but 
at  every  school-house,  high-school,  and  college  declamation,  and 
by  every  fanner  and  artisan,  as  he  tells  you  stoiy  after  story 
of  Lincoln's,  and  all  to  the  point,  hitting  the  nail  on  the  head 
every  time,  and  driving  home  the  argument.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
not  a  scholar,  but  where  is  there  a  speech  more  exhaustive  in 
argument  than  his  Cooper  Institute  address  ?  Where  any  thing 
more  full  of  pathos  than  his  farewell  to  his  neighbors  at 
Springfield,  when  he  bade  them  good-bye,  on  starting  for  the 
capital  ?  Where  any  thing  more  eloquent  than  his  appeal  for 
peace  and  union,  in  his  first  Inaugural,  or  than  his  defense  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  the  Douglas  debates? 
Where  the  equal  of  his  speech  at  Gettysburg?  Where  a 
more  conclusive  argument  than  in  his  letter  to  the  Albany. 
Meeting  on  Arrests  ?  What  is  better  than  his  letter  to  the 

O 

Illinois  State  Convention ;  and  that  to  Hodges  of  Kentucky, 
in  explanation  of  his  anti-slavery  policy?  Where  is  there 
any  thing  equal  in  simple  grandeur  of  thought  and  sentiment, 
to  his  last  Inaugural  ?  From  all  of  these,  and  many  others, 
from  his  every-day  talks,  are  extracts  on  the  tongues  of  the 
people,  as  familiar,  and  nearly  as  much  reverenced,  as  texts 
from  the  Bible  ;  and  these  are  shaping  the  national  character. 
"  Though  dead,  he  yet  speaketh." 

As  a  public  speaker,  if  excellence  is  measured  by  results,  he 
had  no  superior.  His  manner  was  generally  earnest,  often  play- 
ful ;  sometimes,  but  this  was  rare,  he  was  vehement  and  impas- 
eioned.  There  have  been  a  few  instances,  at  the  bar  r.id  0:1 
the  stump,  when,  wrought  up  to  indignation  by  some  great 
personal  wrong,  or  by  an  aggravated  case  of  fraud  or  injustice, 
or  when  speaking  of  the  fearful  wrongs  and  injustice  of  slavery, 
he  broke  forth  in  a  strain  of  impassioned  vehemence  which 
earned  every  thing  before  him. 


LINCOLN   AS   AN   ORATOR.  63 

Generally,  he  addressed  the  reason  and  judgment,  and  the 
effect  was  lasting.  He  spoke  extemporaneously,  but  not 
without  more  or  less  preparation.  He  had  the  power  of 
repeating,  without  reading  it,  a  discourse  or  speech  which  he 
had  prepared  or  written  out.  His  great  speech,  in  opening 
the  Douglas  canvass,  in  June,  1858,  was  carefully  written  out, 
but  so  naturally  spoken  that  few  suspected  that  it  was  not 
extemporaneous.  In  his  style,  manner  of  presenting  facts, 
and  way  of  putting  things  to  the  people,  he  was  more  like 
Franklin  than  any  other  American.  His  illustrations,  by 
anecdote  and  story,  were  not  unlike  the  author  of  Poor 
Richard. 

A  great  cause  of  his  intellectual  power  was  the  thorough 
exhaustive  investigation  he  gave  to  every  subject.  Take,  for 
illustration,  his  Cooper  Institute  speech.  Hundreds  of  able 
and  intelligent  men  have  spoken  on  the  same  subject  treated 
by  him  in  that  speech,  yet  what  they  said  will  all  be  forgotten, 
and  his  will  survive ;  because  his  address  is  absolutely  per- 
fect for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  designed.  Nothing  can 
be  added  to  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  however,  required  time  thoroughly  to  investi- 
gate before  he  came  to  his  conclusions,  and  the  movements  of 
his  mind  were  not  rapid;  but  when  he  reached  his  conclu- 
sions he  believed  in  them,  and  adhered  to  them  with  great 
firmness  and  tenacity.  When  called  upon  to  decide  quickly 
upon  a  new  subject  or  a  new  point,  he  often  erred,  and  was 
ever  ready  to  change  when  satisfied  ho  was  wrong. 

It  was  the  union,  in  Mr.  Lincoln,  of  the  capacity  clearly  to 
see  the  truth,  and  an  innate  love  of  truth,  and  justice,  and 
right  in  his  heart,  that  constituted  his  character  and  made 
him  so  great.  He  never  demoralized  his  intellectual  or  moral 
powers,  either  by  doing  wrong  that  good  might  come,  or  by 


64  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

advocating  error  because  it  was  popular.  Although,  as  a 
statesman,  eminently  practical,  and  looking  to  the  possible 
good  of  to-day,  he  ever  kept  in  mind  the  absolute  truth  and 
absolute  right,  toward  which  he  always  aimed. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  an  unselfish  man;  he  never  sought  his 
own  advancement  at  the  expense  of  others.  He  was  a  just 
man ;  he  never  tried  to  pull  others  down  that  he  might  rise. 
He  disarmed  rivalry  and  envy  by  his  rare  generosity.  He 
possessed  the  rare  wisdom  of  magnanimity.  He  was  emi- 
nently a  tender-hearted,  kind,  and  humane  man.  These  traits 
were  illustrated  all  through  his  life.  He  loved  to  pardon: 
he  was  averse  to  punish.  It  was  difficult  for  him  to  deny 
the  request  of  a  child,  a  woman,  or  of  any  who  were  weak 
and  suffering.  Pages  of  incidents  might  be  quoted,  showing 
his  ever-thoughtful  kindness,  gratitude  to,  and  appreciation  of 
the  soldiers.  The  following  note  (written  to  a  lady  known  to 
him  only  by  her  sacrifices  for  her  country)  is  selected  from 
many  on  this  subject : — 

"  EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON, 

"November,  1864. 
"  DEAR  MADAM  : — 

"  I  have  been  shown,  in  the  files  of  the  "War  Department, 'a  statement  of  the 
Adjutant-General  of  Massachusetts,  that  you  are  the  mother  of  five  sons  who  have 
died  gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle.  I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any 
words  of  mine  which  should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of  a  loss  so 
overwhelming.  But  I  can  not  refrain  from  tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that 
may  be  found  in  the  thanks  of  the  Republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray  that  our 
Heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereavement,  and  leave  you 
only  the  cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the  solemn  pride  that  must 
be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 

"  Yours  very  respectfully, 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
"To  Mrs.  BIXBY,  Boston,  Massachusetts." 

One  summer's  day,  in  walking  along  the  shaded  path 
which  leads  from  the  White  House  to  the  War  Department, 


"  KEMEMBER    BURNSIDE."  65 

I  saw  the  tall  form  of  the  President  seated  on  the  grass  under 
a  tree,  with  a  wounded  soldier  sitting  by  his  side.  He  had  a 
bundle  of  papers  in  his  hand.  The  soldier  had  met  him  in 
the  path,  and,  recognizing  him,  had  asked  his  aid.  Mr.  Lincoln 
sat  down  upon  the  grass,  investigated  the  case,  and  sent  the 
soldier  away  rejoicing.  In  the  midst  of  the  rejoicings  over  the 
triumphs  at  Chattanooga  and  Lookout  Mountain,  he  forgets  not 
to  telegraph  to  Grant,  "  Remember  Burnside  "  at  Knoxville. 

His  charity,  in  the  best  sense  of  that  word,  was  pervading. 
When  others  railed,  he  railed  not  again.  No  bitter  words, 
no  denunciation  can  be  found  in  his  writings  or  speeches. 
Literally,  in  his  heart  there  was  "  malice  toward  none,  and 
charity  for  all." 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  by  nature  a  gentleman.  No  man  can 
point,  in  all  his  lifetime,  to  any  thing  mean,  small,  tricky,  dis- 
honest, or  false;  on  the  contrary,  he  was  ever  open,  manly, 
brave,  just,  sincere,  and  true.  That  characteristic,  attributed 
to  him  by  some,  of  coarse  story -telling,  did  not  exist.  I  assert 
that  my  intercourse  with  him  was  constant  for  many  years 
before  he  went  to  Washington,  and  I  saw  him  daily,  during 
the  greater  part  of  his  Presidency;  and  although  his  stories 
and  anecdotes  were  racy,  witty,  and  pointed  beyond  all  com- 
parison, yet  I  never  heard  one  of  a  character  to  need  palliation 
or  excuse.  If  a  story  had  wit  and  was  apt,  he  did  not  reject 
it,  because  to  a  vulgar  or  impure  mind  it  suggested  coarse 
ideas ;  but  he  himself  was  unconscious  of  any  thing  but  its 
wit  and  aptness. 

It  may  interest  the  people  who  did  not  visit  Washington 
during  his  Presidency,  to  know  something  of  his  habits,  and 
the  room  he  occupied  and  transacted  business  in,  during  his 
administration.  His  reception-room  was  on  the  second  floor, 
on  the  south  side  of  the  White  House,  and  the  second  apart- 


66  SKETCH    OF    THE   LIFE    OF   LINCOLN. 

ment  from  the  southeast  corner.  The  corner  room  was  occu- 
pied by  Mr.  Nicolay,  his  private  secretary ;  next  to  this  was 
the  President's  reception-room.  It  was,  perhaps,  thirty  by 
twenty  feet.  In  the  middle  of  the  West  side,  was  a  large 
marble  fireplace,  with  old-fashioned  brass  andirons,  and  a 
large,  high,  brass  fender.  The  windows  looked  to  the  south, 
upon  the  lawn  and  shrubbery  on  the  south  front  of  the  White 
House,  taking  in  the  unfinished  Washington  Monument, 
Alexandria,  the  Potomac,  and  down,  that  beautiful  river 
toward  Mount  Vernon.  Across  the  Potomac  was  Arlington 
Heights.  The  view  from  these  windows  was  altogether  very 

beautiful. 

« 

The  furniture  of  this  room  consisted  of  a  long  oak  table, 
covered  with  cloth,  and  oak  chairs.  This  table  stood  in  the 
center  of  the  room,  and  was  the  one  around  which  the  Cabinet 
sat,  at  Cabinet  meetings,  and  is  faithfully  painted  in  Carpen- 
ter's picture  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation.  At  the  end 
of  the  table,  near  the  window,  was  a  large  writing-table  and 
desk,  with  pigeon-holes  for  papers,  such  as  are  common  in 
lawyers'  offices.  In  front  of  this,  in  a  large  arm-chair,  Mr. 
Lincoln  usually  sat.  Behind  his  chair,  and  against  the  west 
wall  of  the  room,  was  another  writing-desk  high  enough  to 
write  upon  when  standing,  and  upon  the  top  of  this  were  a 
few  books,  among  which  were  the  Statutes  of  the  United 
States,  a  Bible,  and  a  copy  of  Shakespeare.  There  was  a 
bureau,  with  wooden  doors,  with  pigeon-holes  for  papers, 
standing  between  the  windows.  Here  the  President  kept 
such  papers  as  he  wished  readily  to  refer  to.  There  were 
two  plain  sofas  in  the  room;  generally  two  or  three  map- 
frames,  from  which  hung  military  maps,  on  which  the  move- 
ments of  the  armies  were  continually  traced  and  followed. 
The  only  picture  in  the  room  was  an  old  engraving  of  Jack- 


HIS    EECEPTIOIST-EOOM.  67 

son,  which  hung  over  the  fireplace ;  late  in  his  administration 
was  added  a  fine  photograph  of  John  Bright.  Two  doors 
opened  into  this  room — one  from  the  Secretary's,  the  other 
from  the  great  hall,  where  the  crowd  usually  waited.  A  bell- 
cord  hung  within  reach  of  his  hand,  while  he  sat  at  his  desk. 
There  was  an  ante-room  adjoining  this,  plainly  furnished  ;  but 
the  crowd  usually  pressed  to  the  hall,  from  which  an  entrance 
might  be  directly  had  to  the  President's  room.  A  messenger 
stood  at  the  door,  and  took  in  the  cards  and  names  of  visitors. 
Here,  in  this  room,  more  plainly  furnished  than  many  law 
and  business  offices — plainer  than  the  offices  of  the  heads  of 
bureaus  in  the  Executive  Departments — Mr.  Lincoln  spent 
the  days  of  his  Presidency.  Here  he  received  everybody, 
from  the  Lieutenant-General  and  Chief -Justice,  down  to  the 
private  soldier  and  humblest  citizen.  Custom  had  established 
certain  rules  of  precedence,  fixing  the  order  in  which  officials 
should  be  received.  The  members  of  the  Cabinet  and  the 
high  officers  of  the  army  were,  of  course,  received  always 
promptly.  Senators  and  members  of  Congress,  who  are 
usually  charged  with  the  presentation  of  petitions  and  recom- 
mendations for  appointments,  and  who  are  expected  to  right 
every  wrong  and  correct  every  evil  each  one  of  their  re- 
spective constituents  may  be  suffering,  or  imagine  himself  to 
be  suffering,  have  an  immense  amount  of  business  with  the 
Executive.  I  have  often  seen  as  many  as  ten  or  fifteen  Sen- 
ators and  twenty  or  thirty  Members  of  the  House  in  the  hall, 
waiting  their  turn  to  see  the  President.  They  would  go  to 
the  ante-room,  or  up  to  the  hall  in  front  of  the  reception- 
room,  and  await  their  turns.  The  order  of  precedence  was, 
first  the  Vice-President,  if  present,  then  the  Speaker  of  the 
House,  and  then  Senators  and  Members  of  the  House  in  the 
order  of  their  arrival,  and  the  presentation  of  their  cards.  Fre- 


68  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

quently  Senators  and  Members  would  go  to  the  White  House 
as  early  as  eight  or  nine  in  the  morning,  to  secure  precedence 
and  an  early  interview.  While  they  waited,  the  loud  ring- 
ing laugh  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  which  he  was  sure  to  be  joined 
by  all  inside,  but  which  was  rather  provoking  to  those  out- 
side, was  often  heard  by  the  waiting  and  impatient  crowd. 
Here,  from  early  morning  to  late  at  night,  he  sat,  listened, 
and  decided — patient,  just,  considerate,  hopeful.  All  the 
people  came  to  him  as  to  a  father.  He  was  more  accessible 
than  any  of  the  leading  members  of  his  Cabinet — much  more 
so  than  Mr.  Seward,  shut  up  in  the  State  Department,  writing 
his  voluminous  dispatches;  far  more  so  than  Mr.  Stanton,  in- 
defatigable, stern,  abrupt,  but  ever  honest  and  faithful.  Mr. 
Lincoln  saw  everybody  —  governors,  senators,  congressmen, 
officers,  ministers,  bankers,  merchants,  farmers — all  classes  of 
people ;  all  approached  him  with  confidence,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest ;  but  this  incessant  labor  and  fearful  responsi- 
bility told  upon  his  vigorous  frame.  He  left  Illinois  for  the 
capital,  with  a  frame  of  iron  and  nerves  of  steel.  His  old 
friends,  who  knew  him  in  Illinois  as  a  man  who  knew  not 
what  illness  was,  who  knew  him  ever  genial  and  sparkling 
with  fun,  as  the  months  and  years  of  the  war  passed  slowly 
on,  saw  the  wrinkles  on  his  forehead  deepened  into  furrows ; 
and  the  laugh  of  old  days  became  sometimes  almost  hollow ; 
it  did  not  now  always  seem  to  come  from  the  heart,  as  in 
former  years.  Anxiety,  responsibility,  care,  thought,  wore 
upon  even  his  giant  frame,  and  his  nerves  of  steel  became  at 
times  irritable.  For  more  than  four  years  he  had  no  respite, 
no  holidays.  When  others  fled  away  from  the  dust  and  heat 
of  the  capital,  he  must  stay ;  he  would  not  leave  the  helm 
until  the  danger  was  past  and  the  ship  was  in  port. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  watched  his  care-worn  face  with  the  anxiety 


GKEATNESS    OF   HIS    SERVICES.  69 

of  an  affectionate  wife,  and  sometimes  took  him.  from  Ms 
labors  almost  in  spite  of  himself.  She  urged  him  to  ride,  and 
to  go  to  the  theater  and  places  of  amusement,  to  divert  his 
mind  from  his  engrossing  cares. 

Let  us  for  a  moment  try  to  appreciate  the  greatness  of  his 
work  and  his  services.  He  was  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
during  the  war,  of  the  largest  army  and  navy  in  the  world ; 
and  this  army  and  navy  was  created  during  his  administra- 
tion, and  its  officers  were  sought  out  and  appointed  by  him. 
The  operations  of  the  Treasury  were  vast  beyond  all  previous 
conceptions  of  the  ability  of  the  country  to  sustain ;  and  yet, 
when  he  entered  upon  the  Presidency,  he  found  an  empty 
treasury,  the  public  credit  shaken,  no  army,  no  navy,  the 
officers  all  strangers,  many  deserting,  more  in  sympathy 
with  the  rebels,  Congress  divided,  and  public  sentiment  un- 
formed. The  party  which  elected  him  were  in  a  minority. 
The  old  Democratic  party,  which  had  ruled  the  country  for 
half  a  century,  hostile  to  him,  and,  by  long  political  association, 
in  sympathy  with  the  insurgent  States.  His  own  party,  new, 
made  up  of  discordant  elements,  and  not  yet  consolidated, 
unaccustomed  to  r.ule,  and  neither  his  party  nor  himself  pos- 
sessing any  prestige.  He  entered  the  White  House,  the  ob- 
ject of  personal  prejudice  to  a  majority  of  the  people,  and  of 
contempt  to  a  powerful  minority.  And  yet,  I  am  satisfied, 
from  the  statement  of  the  conversation  of  Mr.  Lincoln  with 
Mr.  Bateman,  quoted  hereafter,  and  from  various  other  rea- 
sons, that  he  himself  more  fully  appreciated  the  terrible  con- 
flict before  him  than  any  man  in  the  nation,  and  that  even 
then  he  hoped  and  expected  to  be  the  Liberator  of  the  slaves. 
He  did  not  yet  clearly  perceive  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
to  be  done,  but  he  believed  it  would  .be  done,  and  that  God 
would  guide  him. 


70  SKETCH    OF   THE    LIFE    OF    LLNCOLN. 

In  four  years,  this  man  crushed  the  most  stupendous  rebel- 
lion, supported  by  armies  more  vast,  and  resources  greater 
than  were  ever  before  combined  to  overthrow  any  govern- 
ment. He  held  together  and  consolidated,  against  warring 
factions,  his  own  great  party,  and  strengthened  it  by  securing 
the  confidence  and  bringing  to  his  aid  a  large  proportion  of 
all  other  parties.  He  was  re-elected  almost  by  acclamation, 
and  he  led  the  people,  step  by  step,  up  to  emancipation,  and 
saw  his  work  crowned  by  the  Constitutional  Amendment, 
eradicating  Slavery  from  the  Republic  for  ever.  Did  this 
man  lack  firmness  ?  Study  the  boldness  of  the  Emanci- 
pation! See  with  what  fidelity  he  stood  by  his  Proclama- 
tion !  In  his  message  of  1863,  he  said  :  "  I  will  never  retract 
the  proclamation,  nor  return  to  slavery  any  person  made  free 
by  it."  In  1864,  he  said  :  "  If  it  should  ever  be  made  a  duty 
of  the  Executive  to  return  to  slavery  any  person  made  free 
by  the  Proclamation  or  the  acts  of  Congress,  some  other  per- 
son, not  I,  must  execute  the  law." 

When  hints  of  peace  were  suggested  as  obtainable  by 
giving  over  the  negro  race  again  to  bondage,  he  repelled  it 
with  indignation.  When  the  rebel  Yice-President,  Stephens, 
at  Fortress  Monroe,  tempted  him  to  give  up  the  freedmen, 
and  seek  the  glory  of  a  foreign  war,  in  which  the  Union  and 
Confederate  soldiers  might  join,  neither  party  sacrificing  its 
honor,  he  was  inflexible ;  he  would  die  sooner  than  break 
the  nation's  plighted  faith. 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  enter  with  reluctance  upon  the  plan 
of  emancipation  ;  and  in  this  statement  I  am  corroborated  by 
Lovejoy  and  Sumner,  and  many  others.  If  he  did  not  act 
more  promptly,  it  was  because  he  knew  he  must  not  go  faster 
than  the  people.  Men  have  questioned  the  firmness,  bold- 
ness, and  will  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  had  no  vanity  in  the  ex- 


THE   MOST   DEMOCRATIC   PRESIDENT.  71 

hibition  of  power,  but  lie  quietly  acted,  when  lie  felt  it  his 
duty  so  to  do,  with  a  boldness  and  firmness  never  surpassed. 

What  bolder  act  than  the  surrender  of  Mason  and  Slidell, 
against  the  resolution  of  Congress  and  the  almost  universal 
popular  clamor,  without  consulting  the  Senate  or  taking 
advice  from  his  Cabinet?  The  removals  of  McClellan  and 
Butler,  the  modification  of  the  orders  of  Fremont  and  Hunter, 
were  acts  of  a  bold,  decided  character.  He  acted  for  himself, 
taking  personally  the  responsibility  of  deciding  the  great 
questions  of  his  administration. 

He  was  the  most  democratic  of  all  the  presidents.  Per- 
sonally, he  was  homely,  plain,  without  pretension,  and  with- 
out ostentation.  He  believed  in  the  people,  and  had  faith  in 
their  good  impulses.  He  ever  addressed  hjmself  to  their 
reason,  and  not  to  their  prejudices.  His  language  was  simple, 
sometimes  quaint,  never  sacrificing  expression  to  elegance. 
When  he  spoke  to  the  people,  it  was  as  though  he  said  to 
them,  "  Come,  let  us  reason  together."  There  can  not  be  found 
in  all  his  speeches  or  writings  a  single  vulgar  expression,  nor 
an  appeal  to  any  low  sentiment  or  prejudice.  He  had  nothing 
of  the  demagogue.  He  never  himself  alluded  to  his  humble 
origin,  except  to  express  regret  for  the  deficiencies  of  his  edu- 
cation. He  always  treated  the  people  in  such  a  way,  that 
they  knew  that  he  respected  them,  believed  them  honest, 
capable  of  judging  correctly,  and  disposed  to  do  right. 

I  know  not  how,  in  a  few  words,  I  can  better  indicate  his 
political  and  moral  character,  than  by  the  following  incident : 
A  member  of  Congress,  knowing  the  purity  of  his  life,  his 
reverence  for  God,  and  his  respect  for  religion,  one  day  ex- 
pressed surprise,  that  he  had  not  joined  a  church.  After 
mentioning  some  difficulties  he  felt  in  regard  to  some  articles 
of  faith,  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "  Whenever  any  church  will  inscribe 


72  SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    OF   LINCOLN. 

over  its  altar,  as  its  sole  qualification  for  membership,  Christ's 
condensed  statement  of  both  Law  and  Gospel,  l  Thou  shalt 
love  tJie  Lord,  thy  God  with  all  tliy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neig/ibor  as  thyself]  that 
church  will  I  join  with  all  my  heart." 

Love  to  God,  as  the  great  Father,  love  to  man  as  his 
brothei',  constituted  the  basis  of  his  political  and  moral  creed. 

One  day,  when  one  of  his  friends  was  denouncing  his  po- 
litical enemies,  "  Hold  on,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  Remember 
what  St.  Paul  says,  'and  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  charity, 
these  three ;  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity.'1  r 

From  the  day  of  his  leaving  Springfield  to  assume  the 
duties  of  the  Presidency,  when  he  so  impressively  asked  his 
friends  and  neighbors  to  invoke  upon  him  the  guidance  and 
wisdom  of  God,  to  the  evening  of  his  death,  he  seemed  ever  to 
live  and  act  in  the  consciousness  of  his  responsibility  to  Him, 
and  with  the  trusting  faith  of  a  child  he  leaned  confidingly 
upon  His  Almighty  Arm.  He  was  visited  during  his  admin- 
istration by  many  Christian  delegations,  representing  the 
various  religious  denominations  of  the  Republic,  and  it  is 
known  that  he  was  relieved  and  comforted  in  his  great  work 
by  the  consciousness  that  the  Christian  world  were  praying 
for  his  success.  Some  one  said  to  him,  one  day,  "  No  man  was 
ever  so  remembered  in  the  prayers  of  the  people,  especially  of 
those  who  pray  not  to  be  heard  of  men,  as  you  are."  He  re- 
plied, "I  have  been  a  good  deal  helped  by. just  that  thought." 

The  support  which  Mr.  Lincoln  received  during  his  ad- 
ministration from  the  religious  organizations,  and  the  sympathy 
and  confidence  between  the  great  body  of  Christians  and  the 
President,  was  indeed  a  source  of  immense  strength  and  power 
to  him.  i 

I  know  of  nothing  revealing  more  of  the  true  character  of 


CONVERSATION    WITH   MR.    BATEMAN.  73 

Mr.  Lincoln,  his  conscientiousness,  his  views  of  the  slavery 
question,  his  sagacity  and  his  fall  appreciation  of  the  awful 
trial  through  which  the  country  and  he  had  to  pass,  than  the 
following  incident  stated  by  Mr.  Bateman,  Superintendent  of 
Public  Instruction  for  Illinois. 

On  one  occasion,  in  the  autumn  of  1860,  after  conversing 
with  Mr.  Bateman  at  some  length,  on  the,  to  him,  strange  con- 
duct of  Christian  men  and  ministers  of  the  Gospel  supporting 
slavery,  he  said  :— 

"  I  know  there  is  a  God,  and  that  He  hates  injustice  and 
slavery.  I  see  the  storm  coming,  and  I  know  that  His  hand 
is  in  it.  If  He  has  a  place  and  work  for  me — and  I  think  He 
has — I  believe  I  am  ready.  I  am  nothing,  but  truth  is  every 
thing.  I  know  I  am  right,  because  I  know  that  Liberty  is 
right,  for  Christ  teaches  it,  and  Christ  is  God.  I  have  told 
them  that  a  house  divided  against  itself  can  not  stand ;  and 
Christ  and  Reason  say  the  same ;  and  they  will  find  it  so. 

"  Douglas  don't  care  whether  slavery  is  voted  up  or  down, 
but  God  cares,  and  humanity  cares,  and  I  care;  and  with 
God's  help  I  shall  not  fail.  I  may  not  see  the  end ;  but  it  will 
come,  and  I  shall  be  vindicated ;  and  these  men  will  find  that 
they  have  not  read  their  Bibles  right." 

Much  of  this  was  uttered  as  if  he  were  speaking  to  him- 
self, and  with  a  sad,  earnest  solemnity  of  manner  impossible 
to  be  described.  After  a  pause,  he  resumed :  "  Doesn't  it 
appear  strange  that  men  can  ignore  the  moral  aspect  of  this 
contest  ?  A  revelation  could  not  make  it  plainer  to  me  that 
slavery  or  the  Government  must  be  destroyed.  The  future 
would  be  something  awful,  as  I  look  at  it,  but  for  this  rock  on 
which  I  stand  (alluding  to  the  Testament  which  he  still  held 
in  his  hand).  It  seems  as  if  God  had  borne  with  this  thing 
(slavery)  until  the  very  teachers  of  religion  had  come  to  de- 
5 


74  SKETCH    OF    THE   LIFE   OF   LINCOLN. 

fend  it  from  the  Bible,  and  to  claim  for  it  a  divine  character 
and  sanction ;  and  now  the  cup  of  iniquity  is  full,  and  the 
vials  of  wrath  will  be  poured  out."  After  this,  says  Mr.  Bate- 
niaii,  the  conversation  was  continued  for  a  long  time.  Every 
thing  he  said  was  of  a  peculiarly  deep,  tender,  and  religious 
tone,  and  all  was  tinged  with  a  touching  melancholy.  He 
repeatedly  referred  to  his  conviction  that  the  day  of  wrath 
was  at  hand,  and  that  he  was  to  be  an  actor  in  the  terrible 
struggle  which  would  issue  in  the  overthrow  of  slavery, 
though  he  might  not  live  to  see  the  end.* 

Perhaps  in  all  history  there  is  no  example  of  such  great 
and  long  continued  injustice  as  that  of  the  British  press 
during  the  war  toward  Mr.  Lincoln.  His  death  shamed  them 
into  decency.  While  he  lived  they  sneered  at  his  manners. 
Let  them  turn  to  their  own  Cromwell.  They  said  his  person  was 
ugly.  Has  the  world  recognized  the  ability  of  Mirabeau,  or 
that  of  Henry  Brougham,  notwithstanding  their  ugliness  ? 
They  made  scurrile  jests  about  his  figure,  as  though  a  states- 
man must  be  necessarily  a  sculptor's  model!  They  were 
facetious  about  his  dress,  as  though  a  greater  than  a  Fox  or  a 
Chatham  must  be  a  Beau  Brummel.  They  were  horrified 
by  his  jokes.  If  the  same  had  been  told  by  the  patrician 
Palmerston,  instead  of  the  plebeian  Lincoln,  they  would  not 
have  lacked  the  "Attic  salt,"  but  would  have  rivaled  Dean 
Swift  or  Sidney  Smith. 

It  has  been  truly  said  there  is  one  parallel  only,  to  English 
journalism's  treatment  of  Lincoln,  and  that  is  to  be  found  in 
their  treatment  of  Napoleon.  "  The  Corsican  Ogre,"  and  the 
"American  Ape,"  were  phrases  coined  in  the  same  mint.  But 
the  great  Corsican  was  England's  bitter  foe;  Lincoln  was 

*The  foregoing  statement  has  been  verified  by  Mr.  Bateman  as  substantially 
correct. 


WASHINGTON   AND    LINCOLN.  75 

I 

never  provoked  either  by  his  own  or  his  country's  wrongs,  to 
hostility  against  Great  Britain.  Yet  at  the  great  Martyr's 
grave,  even  this  injustice  changed  to  respect  and  reverence ; 
even  "  Punch  "  repented  and  said— 

"  Yes  he  had  lived  to  shame  me  from  my  sneer, 
To  lame  my  pencil,  and  confute  my  pen  ; 
To  make  me  own  this  hind,  of  princes  peer, 
This  rail-splitter  a  true-born  King  of  men." 

The  place  Mr.  Lincoln  will  occupy  in  history,  will  be  higher 
than  any  which  he  held  while  living.  His  Emancipation 
Proclamation  is  the  most  important  historical  event  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Its  influence  will  not  be  limited  by  time, 
nor  bounded  by  locality.  It  will  ever  be  treated  by  the  his- 
torian as  one  of  the  great  landmarks  of  human  progress. 

He  has  been  compared  and  contrasted  with  three  great  per- 
sonages in  history,  who  were  assassinated, — with  Caesar,  with 
William  of  Orange,  and  with  Henry  IV.  of  France.  He  was 
a  nobler  type  of  man  than  either,  as  he  was  the  product  of  a 
higher  and  more  Christian  civilization. 

The  two  great  men  by  whose  words  and  example  our  great 
continental  Republic  is  to  be  fashioned  and  shaped  are  Wash- 
ington and  Lincoln.  Representative  men  of  the  East,  and  of 
the  West,  of  the  Revolutionary  era,  and  the  era  of  Liberty 
for  all.  One  sleeps  upon  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  and  the 
other  on  the  great  prairies  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi. 
Lincoln  was  as  pure  as  Washington,  as  modest,  as  just,  as 
patriotic ;  less  passionate  by  nature,  more  of  a  democrat  in  his 
feelings  and  manners,  with  more  faith  in  the  people,  and  more 
hopeful  of  their  future.  Statesmen  and  patriots  will  study 
their  record  and  learn  the  wisdom  of  goodness. 


ENGRAVED    PORTRAIT   OF    PRESIDENT   LINCOLN. 


THE  Portrait  of  Mr.  LINCOLN,  accompanying  this  book, 
has  been  engraved,  for  the  Publisher,  expressly  for  it.  No 
labor  or  expense  has  been  spared  to  produce  a  First-Class 
Engraving.  It  was  executed  by  H.  B.  HALL,  JR.,  ESQ.,  who 
unquestionably  stands  in  the  front  rank  of  American 
Engravers.  The  great  Painting  of 


is  now  being  engraved  by  Mr.  HALL,  in  the  same  style. 

This  PORTRAIT  of  President  LINCOLN  is  pronounced  by 
all  to  be  the  most  life-like — the  best  ever  engraved  of  him. 
It  may  not  be  improper  to  state  that  I  have  a  letter  from 
his  family  to  that  effect,  which  I  refrain  to  place  in  print. 
I  will,  however,  publish  a  few  from  persons  intimately 
acquainted  with  him,  selecting  from  the  large  number  that  I 
have  received. 


ortrait  of  f  mitet  Ihtroln. 


PPINIONS  OF  HIS 

"  WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  June  22,  1868. 
"DEAR  SIR: — 

'•  I  have  examined  with  interest  the  steel  engraving  of  President  LINCOLN  published  by  yon, 
I  knew  him  intimately  more  than  thirty  years,  being  at  times  a  member  of  his  family.  • 

"  I  regard  this  portrait  the  happiest  likeness — and  it  conveys  to  me  the  most  pleasing  recollection  of 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  of  any  that  I  have  seen. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

14  J.  B.  8.  TODD. 
"CoL.  JOHN  B.  BACHELDER." 

"TREASURY  DEPARTMENT,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  July  80,  1868. 
"DEAR  SIR:— 

"  I  have  carefully  examined  the  portrait  of  the  late  President,  Mr.  LINCOLN,  engraved  by 
Mr.  H.  B.  HALL,  Jr..  and  published  by  yourself.  The  engraving  is  exceedingly  fine,  and  the  likeness  is 
superior  to  any  that  I  have  seen.  As  a  work  of  Art,  it  is  in  the  highest  degreo  creditable  to  Mr.  HALL. 

"Very  respectfully, 

"HUGH  McCULLOCH, 

"  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
"Cox.  JOHN  B.  BACHELDER." 

"  WAR  DEPARTMENT,  July  30,  1868. 

"    *    *    *    It  is  one  of  the  most  truthful  likenesses  of  the  late  President  that  I  have  seen.    *    *    * 

"Yours  very  truly, 

«  J.  M.  SCHOFIELD, 

'•'•Secretary  of  War. 
"CoL.  JOHN  B.  BACHELDER.'' 

"  NAVY  DEPARTMENT,  July  80, 1868. 
"    *    *    *    I  think  it  a  correct  and  satisfactory  likeness  in  all  respects. 

"GIDEON  WELLES, 

"  Se-cretary  of  yavy. 
"  J.  B.  BACUXLDER,  ESQ." 

"  HEAD-QUARTERS,  CORPS  OF  ENGINEERS, 

"  WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  July  80,  1S68. 

"    *    *    *    It  is  a  beautiful  piece  of  Art,  indeed  it  is    I  tlrink  quite  remarkable,  presenting,  as  it  does 
that  characteristic  expression  of  the  eye  as  well  as  of  the  features  and  lines  of  the  face.    *    *    * 

"  I  am  very  truly  yonrs, 

"  A.  A.  HUMPHREYS, 

"Jfajor-General." 


A  quarto  edition  of  this  Engraving  has  been  published,  suitable  to  frame,  which  will  be  sent  free  by  mail 
to  any  part  of  the  country  on  the  reception  of  the  price. 


PRINT,  $1.00;  PLAIN  PROOF,  $2.00;    INDIA  PROOF,  $3.00;  ARTIST'S  PROOF  (selected  and  signed 
by  the  engraver,  and  tastefully  framed  in  &  passe-partout),  $5.00.    (Express  delivery  extra.) 

Orders  jUddressed,  to 

JOHN    B.   BACHELDER,  Publisher, 

59  BEEXMAN  STEEET,  NEW  YOEK. 


PROSPECTUS    OF    WOF^KS 


PUBLISHED  BY 


JOHN    B.     BACHELDER, 

59    BEEKMAN   STREET, 


COL.    MORROW,    with   the  COLORS   of   the     I4th  MICH.    VOLS. 


GETTYSBURG. 

WHEX  a  person  is  desirous  of  procuring  a  published  work  upon 
any  subject,  it  is  natural  for  him  to  inquire  for  the  sources  of 
information  from  which  the  author  has  compiled  that  work.  I  have, 
therefore,  without  wishing  to  be  considered  egotistical,  concluded  to 
issue  this  prospectus  to  such  as  have  an  interest  in  the  Battle  of 
Gettysburg,  that  they  may  know  what  I  have  already  done,  and  what 
I  yet  propose  to  do.  to  eliminate  the  history  of  that  battle. 


ISOMETRICAL  DRAWING  OF  THE  GETTYSBURG  BATTLE-FIELD. 

In  compiling  the  Isometrical  Drawing  of  the  Gettysburg  Battle-field,  it  was 
first  necessary  to  establish  its  extent  and  boundaries.  "When  I  arrived  at  Gettys- 
burg the  I'fibria  of  that  irreat.  battle  lay  scattered  for  miles  around.  Fresh  mounds 
of  earth  marked  the  resting-place  of  the  fallen  thousands,  and  many  of  the  dead 
lay  yet  unburied.  It  therefore  required  no  jruide  to  point  out  the  locality  where 
the  battle  had  been  fousrht. 


As  the  tevmjield,  vvlien  api>lied  to  a  battle,  is  generally  used  figuratively,  and, 
by  the  general  reader,  might  be  misunderstood,  it  is  well  to  consider  at  the  start, 
that  the  battle-yfe/rf  of  Gettysburg  not  only  embraces  within  its  boundaries  many 
felh,  but  forests  as  well,  and  even  the  town  of  Gettysburg  itself  is  included  in 
that  battle-field.  The  formation  of  the  ground  and  the  positions  of  the  troops, 
favored  the  plan  of  sketching  the  field  while  facing  the  west.  Consequently  the 
top  of  my  DHAAVIXG  of  it  is  west;  the  right  hand,  north;  the  left,  south,  &c. 
There  was  no  point  from  which  the  whole  field  could  be  sketched,  nor  would  such 
a  position  have  favored  this  branch  of  Art.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  necessary  to 
sketch  from  every  part  of  the  field,  combining  the  whole  into  one  grand  view. 


DEATH    OF    GEN.    ZOOK. 

Having  located  its  boundaries,  T  commenced  at  the  southeast  corner,  and 
gradually  moving  toward  the  nortJi,  I  looked  toward  the  vest,  and  sketched  it 
carefully,  as  far  as  the  vision  extended,  including  fields,  forests,  houses,  barns, 
hills,  and  valleys;  and  every  object,  however  minute,  which  would  influence  the 
result  of  a  battle.  Thus  I  continued  to  the  northeast  boundary,  a  distance  of  five 
and  a  half  miles.  The  next  day  I  resumed  my  work  at  the  south  (having  advanced 
to  the  point  where  my  vision  had  been  obstructed  the  preceding  day),  and  sketched 
another  breadth  to  the  north,  as  before:  and  so  continued,  day  by  day,  until  T  had 
carried  my  Drawing  forward  four  and  a  half  miles,  which  included  within  its 
limits  the  town  of  Gettysburg.  When  the  Battle-field  had  been  hometrifnU ij 
drawn.  T  sketched  in  the  iHstancr  and  added  a  skv. 


This  Drawing  was  tin-  result  of  eight y-t'oiir  days  .-pent  on  that  field  imme- 
diately after  the  battle,  during  which  time  I  sketched  accurately  the  twenty-live 
sipiare  miles  which  it  represents. 

I  spent  two  months  in  hospital  writing  down  the  statements  of  Confeder- 
ate prisoners,  and  as  they  became  convalescent,  1  went  over  the  field  with  many 
of  their  officers,  who  located  their  positions  and  explained  the  movements  of  their 
commands  during  the  battle. 

I  then  visited  the  AKMY  OF  TIIK  POTO.MAC.  consulted  with  its  Commander-in- 
Chief,  Corps,  Division,  and  Brigade  commanders,  and  visited  every  Regiment  and 
Battery/engaged,  to  whose  officers  the  sketch  of  the  field  was  submitted,  and  they, 
after  careful'  consultation,  located  upon  it  the  positions  of  their  respective  com- 
mands. 


PHILLIPS'    5th    MASS.    BATTERY 

From  the  information  thus  obtained.  I  have  traced  the  movements  of  every 
Refitment  and  Battery  from  the  commencement  to  the  close  of  the  battle,  and 
have  located  on  the  Drawing  its  most  important  position  for  each  of  the  three 
days. 

Since  its  publication  I  issued  an  invitation  to  the  officers  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  to  visit  Gettysburg  with  me.  and  point  out  their  respective  positions  and 
movements,  thus  giving  an  opportunity  to  the  actors  in  this  great  drama  to  correct 
any  misapprehension,  and  establish,  while  still  fresh  in  memory,  the  facts  and 
details  of  this  most  important  battle  of  the  age.  This  invitation  was  responded  to 
by  over  one  thousand  officers  engaged  in  the  battle ;  twenty-eight  of  whom  were 
Generals  commanding.  And  it  may  be  interesting  to  those  who  possess  the  Draw- 
ing, to  know  that  Imt  m,r  */////</ /•//  llrij'nm  ill  was  discovered  to  be  out  of  position 
on  it. 

Manv  thousand  copies  of  this  work  have  been  sold,  yet  the  demand   still  con- 


tinues,  and  orders  are  constantly  coining  in  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  Though 
complete  in  itself,  it  is  really  but  the  introduction  to  other  works  yet  to  be  pub- 
lished on  this  battle,  and  will  be  considered  almost  an  indispensable  companion  to 
the  history  of  it. 

It  can  be  furnished  at  the  following : 

PRICES. 

COI.OKKD  PROOF,  on  heavy  plate  paper,  carefully  finished  in  Water-Colors,  $15  00 
PROOF,  printed  in  tints,  on  paper  as  above,  with  positions  of  Regiments, 

colored,  10  00 

TINTED,  printed  with  one  tint,  on  lighter  paper,  5  00 

JSP"  The  above  styles  have  a  sky,  and  are  suitable  to  frame,  and  are  accom- 
panied by  a  key. 

PLAIN,  on  lighter  paper,  without  sky,         -         -  -     $.3  00 


CAPTURE    OF   THE    8th    LA.    COLORS    BY  LT.  YOUNG,    ADG'T    myth    OHIO   VOLS. 

The  original  plate  has  not  been  used  except  to  print  copies  for  transfers.  The 
first  impressions  from  each  transfer  are  reserved  for  PROOFS.  Therefore  the 
quality  of  the  print  can  never  materially  change,  as  the  original  plate  would  fur- 
nish a  thousand  transfers.  The  colored  PROOFS  are  carefully  colored  by  an  Artist. 
The  TINTED  and  PLAIN  editions  are  next  printed,  and  when  the  plate  Js  worn  a  new 
transfer  is  made. 

To  any  person  remitting  the  money,  for  either  of  the  above  styles.  I  will  for- 
ward the  print  by  mail,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  FREK  OF  CHARGE,  care- 
fully packed  on  a  roll :  or,  I  will  send  it  by  express,  at  their  expense,  with  bill  for 
collection.  I  have  sent  hundreds  by  mail,  to  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  have  yet, 
to  hear  of  the  first  copy  being  lost  or  injured,  while  it  is  quite  a  saving  of  expense. 
A  Key,  embracing  a  brief  description  of  the  battle,  accompanies  each  print  with- 
out extra  charge.  I  have  hundreds  of  letters  of  indorsement  from  which  \  select 
the  following:— 


TESTIMONIALS. 


u HEAD-QVABXIM  ARMY  <»•  THE  IN >T<> \i..\r.  /•'<•/<.  11.  1S64. 

'•I  have  examined  Col.  ISacheldcr's  ISOMKTRK  AI.  I)i:.vwix<;  <it'  the  (Ji-.tty.-burir  l.atilc-licld.  and  am  per- 
fectly satisfied  with  the  accuracy  \vitli  which  the  topography  is  delineated,  and  tin-  position*  ot  thr  troops 
laid  down.  (.'((1.  15..  in  my  judgment.  deserve.-.  L'rcat  credit  for  the  time  and  labor  lie  has  devoted  to  obtain- 
ing the  materials  for  this  drawini.'.  which  have  resulted  in  making'  it  -o  accurate.  *  *  *  *  lean  checr- 
fiilly  recommend  it  to  all  those  who  are  desirous  of  procuring  an  accurate  picture  and  faithful  record  of  the 
events  of  this  great  battle.  *  *  *  * 

••  I  remain  most  truly  yours. 

"CKO.  C,.  MKADK. 

-. if <  i j.- <;rn.  i'iti.it/'tj.  A.P.'"' 


'•HEAD-QUARTERS  SECOND  ARMY  CORPS,  Dec.  'J'J.  1SW. 

"The  view  of  the  Battle-field  of  Gettysburg  prepared  by  Col.  Bacheldcr,  has  been  carefully  examined  by 
me.  I  find  it  us  accurate  as  such  a  drawing  can  well  be  made.  And  it  its  m-ciinttf.  as  far  as  my  knowledge 
extends. 

"WINFD   8.  HANCOCK, 
••  Mtijor-General  ConuPg  '2d  ('«/;//*." 


'•Col.   Bachclder's  Isometrical   View  of  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg  is  an  admirable  production,  and 
truthful  rendering  of  the  various  positions  assumed  by  the  troops  of  my  command. 

"A.   DOI   I5LKDAY. 
Mtij.-i.ien.    IW«.,    Coniil'ij    U/   ('u/7/.N 


-BOSTON.  Se[,t.  •-'.'!.  l-r,|. 

"  COL.  BACIIKI.DEK: — I  have  examined  your  beautiful  drawing  of  the  I!attle-lield  of  Gettysburg  and 
vicinity.  The  ccrtilicates  of  Gen.  Miade  and  tile  Corps  Commanders,  which  appear  on  its  lace,  establish  its 
accuracy  on  the  highest  authority.  Your  personal  explorations,  and  your  inquiries  of  all  the  cominis.iioiied 
olliecrs  in  command  of  the  I'nion  Army,  and  of  the  Confederate  otlieers  made  prisoners,  have  furnished  you 
means  of  information  not  possessed.  I  ima-rine.  l>y  any  other  person.  Such  opportunities  of  observation  as  I 
had  diirinir  three  days  pa>sed  at  Gettysburg  satisfy  me  of  the  fidelity  of  your  delineation  <if  the  position  of 
every  regiment  .of  the  two  armies  on  each  of  the  three  eventful  days.  *  *  *  *  I  may  add,  that  the 
engraving  is  beautifully  executed  and  colored.  Wishing  you  ample  remuneration, 

'•  I  remain  sincerely  your.-. 

-  l.fnVAUI)   KVKUETT." 


"HEAD-QL-ARTF.RS  FIFTH  ARMY  COUPS.  Sept.  •_'•-.   l>iU. 
''  MR.  JNO.  B.  BAOHELDER: — 

"DEAR  Siu: — I  am  exceedingly  gratified  with  receiving  a  finished  copy  of  your  print  of  the  Battle-field 
of  Gettysburg.  I  am  familiar  with  your  long  and  untiring  labors  in  all  the  fields  where  truth  could  be 
reached,  and  know  that  your  efforts  were  crowned  with  a  success  that  leaves  nothing  more  to  be  de-ired. 
You  are  authorized  to  add  my  name  to  those  who  bear  testimony  to  its  accuracy. 

"  Very  respectfully  your  obedient  servant. 

'•«.  K.  \VAI:I:F..\. 

'' .}fll}.-llrll.      IW.V..    t'OHII/'t/   il//l     I'ui'llX. 
••   I'll.     KlKJ.    lit    (l\-tt>/>llltl'<J." 

••ORAXI.K.   Oct.   1,  1>I'4. 
'•JNO.  B.  BACHEI.DER,  Esq.: — 

"My  I)i:.\i:  SIR: — 1  have  carefully  examined  your  Isometrical  Drawing  of  the  Battle-field  of  Gettys- 
burg, with  i:reat  interest  and  much  profit.  Never  having  been  on  that  Held,  of  course  I  can  not.  express  an 
opinion  as  to  its  accuracy — >o  abundantly  indorsed  for.  however,  by  most  competent  judges:  lint  I  can  say 
that  it  has  -riven  me  :i  much  clearer  idea  of  the  battle  than  I  had  before,  and  I  earnestly  hope  that  you  will 
find  it  convenient  to  illustrate  others  of  our  great  battles  in  the  same  manner. 

"  I  am  very  truly  yours. 

"GEO.  B.  McCLELLAN." 


'•IlEAD-QfAKTKKS  Dlil-'T  AND  ARMY  OF  THK   TENNESSEE.    Oct.  24,    \<(A. 

•'Mi:.  Jxo.  B.  BAC-IIELUEP.  :  — 

••  MY  DKAU  Snt :— I  was  much  gratified  on  receiving  <-opy  of  your  beautiful  drawing  of  the  •  (Jcttysbun: 
Battle-field."  I  have  never  seen  a  painting  or  topogntpbica]  map  that  i-ouM  irive  so  vivid  a  representation 
ol'u  irrent  battle.  I  repird  it  ns  an  honor  that  you  have  associated  my  name  with  those  of  other  corps  com- 
manders in  your  historical  picture.  Be  pleased  to  accept  my  kind  regards. 

"Respectfully  yours. 

"O.  O.  HOWAKD.  Major-General." 


•"CoL.  JNO.  B.  BACIIEI.UEI-.  :— 

'•  DEAU  S-IK: — I  have  examined  with  care  your  Isometriral  DrawiuiT  of  the  •iettyslinri:  Battle-field,  ami 
can  cheerfully  bear  testimony  to  the  accuracy  of  the  position  of  the  troops  on  the  riirht  of  our  line. 

'•  Yours  very  truly, 

"  II.  W.  SI.OITM, 
"Maj.-Gen.  Vol*.,  Comd'g  Itiijht  \\~inijnt  Gettysburg." 


WOFFORD'S  FLANK   ATTACK   ON    SWEITZER'S    BRIGADE,    DEATH    OF    COL.  JEFFERS 
4th  MICH.  VOLS. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BATTLE. 

During  my  consultations  with  officers  at  the  front,  as  well  as  on 
the  Battle-field,  I  noted  down  with  great  care  their  conversations, 
and  have  books  full  of  material  thus  rescued  from  oblivion. 

Since  the  publication  of  the  Drawing,  and  even  before,  I  have  been  steadily 
engaged  in  compiling  the  History  of  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg.  I  have  traveled 
many  thousand  miles  to  add  to  my  knowledge.  I  have  received  a  great  number 
of  letters  relating  to  it,  and  the  Government  have  very  considerately  placed  at  my 
disposal  the  entire  Reports  of  both  the  Union  and  Confederate  officers  ;  and  have 
.also  given  me  access  to  the  archives  at  Washington.  They  have  recently  ordered 
a  re-survey  of  the  field,  which  is  now  being  done  by  Government  Engineers  in 
the  most  complete  and  scientific  manner.  A  fine  Topographical  map  is  to  be  corn- 


STANNARD'S   BRIGADE    OPENING   ON    PICKETTS1    DIVISION. 

piled  and  engraved,  copies  of  which  I  have  arranged  to  have  to  illustrate  my  His- 
tory of  the  Battle.  This  book,  iu  addition  to  the  maps,  which  will  cost  several 
thousand  dollars,  will  also  be  illustrated  with  Steel  Plates  and  Wood-Cuts  in  a 
manner  second  to  no  book  heretofore  published  in  this  country.  Over  *7,~)0<) 
worth  of  illustrations  are  already  engraved  to  embellish  it,  including  fine  Steel 
Portraits,  executed  by  the  best  engravers  in  America,  in  line  and  stipple-,  of 
Generals  Reynolds,  Doubleday,  Newton.  Meredith,  Stannard,  Hancock,  Gibbon. 
Zook,  Hays,  Webb,  Hall,  Sickles,  Birney,  Humphreys,  Berdan,  Sykes,  Barnes, 
Tilton,  Wright,  Bartlett,  Wheaton,  Howard,  Ames.  Slocum.  Williams,  (ic.-ir\, 
Kane,  Pleasanton,  Butterfield.  Warren,  Hunt.  Jngalls,  Randolph.  Martin,  and  Me- 


Gilvrey.  Several  others  are  in  hand,  and  undoubtedly  more  will  be  added  to  the 
list.  In  addition  to  these  the  Portraits  of  leading  Confederate  Generals  will  be 
engraved.  Many  of  the  prominent  scenes  of  the  battle  have  already  been  beauti- 
fully designed  and  engraved  on  wood,  samples  of  which  embellish  this  circulai, 
others  are  to  be  added,  and  to  those  interested  I  shall  be  pleased  to  furnish  full 
information  regarding  either  portraits  or  wood-cuts. 

I  shall  publish  a  POPULAR  EDITION  of  the  history,  with  portraits  printed  from 
transfers,  and  bound  in  cloth.     Price $7  50 


The  next  will  be  the  LIBRARY  EDITION,  royal  octavo,  printed  on  good   fair 
paper,  good  plates,  and  substantially  bound  in  sheep $12  00 


The  same  size  printed  on  fine  paper.     Proof  Portraits — bound  in  half  morocco, 
beveled  boards $17  50 


A  FINE  EDITION  on  tinted  paper.  Proof  Portraits.  Full  morocco,  gilt, 
beveled  boards,  gilt  edges $25  00 

A  LARGE  PAPER  EDITION  (limited)  will  be  printed  from  new  type,  and  the 
original  wood-cuts  in  the  best  style  of  modern  hand-press  work,  on  heavy  toned 
paper,  with  the  finest  INDIA  PROOF  PORTRAITS.  In  Sheets,  stitched,  uncut,  $100  00 

Elaborately  bound.     Full  levant  morocco,  gilt $125  00 


I  have  now  devoted  five  years  and  a  half  to  collecting  material  for  the  history 
of  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg,  but  until  quite  recently  I  have  felt  unwilling  to  com- 
mence to  write,  knowing  that  other  matter  existed  which  it  was  important  for  rne 
to  have,  and  which,  when  obtained,  might  make  a  material  change  in  the  ac- 
count. Tliis  reason  no  longer  exists,  though  I  shall  still  thankfully  receive  sug- 
gestions from  any  participant  in  the  battle. 

Within  another  year  the  Government  will  have  completed  the  Topographical 
Map  of  the  field,  by  which  time  I  hope  to  be  ready  to  publish  my  work.  As  a 
publisher  I  would  have  done  so  long  ago,  but  as  a  historian  not  until  I  feel  that  I 
have  written  the  truth — the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 


PAINTINGS    OF    THE    BATTLE. 

I    have  also    in    progress,  the  finest  Collection  of   Oil    Paintings 
executed  of  any  battle  in  this  country.     The  whole  to  be  known  as 

"THE    GETTYSBURG    ART    GALLERY." 

I  have  divided  the  Battle  into  fi  series  of  episodes,  beginning  with  its  com- 
mencement and  continuing  to  its  close,  each  to  embrace  such  movements  and 
operations  as  of  themselves  form  a  complete  unit.  Of  each,  I  make  an  accurate 
historical  design,  which  design  I  place  in  the  hands  of  some  eminent  battle-scene 
painter,  who  will  be  responsible  for  the  artistic  rendering  of  the  subject.  Eacli 
painting  is  to  be  7x4  ft.,  and  when  completed,  will  be  exhibited  in  the  places 


REPULSE    OF   LONGSTREET'S   CHARGE. 

where  the  regiments  represented  in  it  were  raised.  Tlie  whole,  together,  will 
form  a  most  complete  and  graphic  representation  of  the  Battle  from  its  commence- 
ment to  the  close.  Each  of  these  paintings  will  be  engraved  on  steel,  and  here- 
after engravings  may  be  had  representing  actual  scenes,  which,  having  been 
designed  under  the  personal  direction  of  the  participants  themselves,  will  possess 
the  merit  of  historical  truth. 

It  must  not  be  understood  that  this  whole  work  is  to  be  put  in  hand  at  once. 
It  will  be  taken  up  in  detail,  and  continued  as  rapidly  as  I  have  time  and  means  to 
attend  to  it.  I  shall  be  happy  to  correspond  \\ith  those  interested  in  any  portion 
of  the  Battle.  When  convenient,  it  will  be  better  to  call  a  meeting,  at  Gettysburg. 
of  the  officers  of  the  command  to  be  represented,  before  commencing  a  painting, 
that  all  the  details  may  be  properly  arranged.  I  have  already  made  a  design, 


representing  the  "  charge  "  of  the  Gth  Wisconsin,  95th  N.  Y.,  and  14th  N.  Y. 
S.  M.,  on  the  lirst  day,  resulting  in  the  capture  of  the  2d  Mississippi  Regiment, 
which  is  now  being  painted  by  Alonzo  Chappel,  Esq.,  the  eminent  historical 
painter.  I  have  recently  met,  at  Gettysburg,  the  officers  of  the  3d  Division, 
1st  Army  Corps,  and  under  their  direction  completed  a  design  of  their  engage- 
ment on  the  afternoon  of  the  first  day,  which  will  also  embrace  the  move- 
ments of  the  1st  Brigade,  1st  Division.  This  picture  is  now  being  painted  by  the 
distinguished  battle-scene  painter,  James  Walker,  Esq. 

Fine  Steel  Engr.-.vings  will  be  published  from  these  paintings.    Size  (engraved 
surface),  12  x  21  in. 

PRICES: 

Prints,  $5.00  ;  Plain  Proofs,  $10.00  ;  India  Proofs,  $15.00;  Artist's  Proofs,  $25.00. 


DEATH    OF    MAJOR   FERRY,    5th    MICH.  CAV'Y. 
Mr.  Walker  has  just  completed  for  me,  his  graphic  representation  of 

THE    REPULSE    OF    LONGSTREET'S   CHARGE, 

on  the  afternoon  of  the  third  day,  which  Avill  be  exhibited  in  the  principal  cities 
of  the  country.  This  is  also  from  my  historical  design,  and  has  been  painted  under 
my  immediate  direction.  Mr.  Walker  spent  weeks  at  Gettysburg,  transcribing 
the  portraiture  of  the  field  to  canvas,  which  has  been  done  in  the  most  pleasing 
and  lifelike  manner.  We  have  received  in  this  matter  the  kindest  support  and 
co-operation  of  the  officers  of  the  army,  engaged  on  that  portion  of  the  field. 


Many  distinguished  general  officers,  on  my  invitation,  visited  Gettysburg,  and 
went  over  the  field  with  us,  and  pointed  out  all  the  details  of  this  great  turning 
point  of  the  Rebellion  ;  each  explaining  the  movements  of  their  several  com- 
mands. Among  those  present  at  different  times,  were  Generals  Meade,  Hancock, 
Gibbon,  Howard,  Doubleday,  Stannard,  Hunt,  Warren,  Humphreys,  Graham, 
Hurling,  De  Trobriand.  Wistar,  and  Dana;  together  with  a  large  number  of  Field, 
Line,  and  Staff-Officers.  Most  of  these  gentlemen  have  since  kindly  called  at  Mr. 
Walker's  studio,  and  aided  the  work  with  their  advice.  Many  others,  who  were 
unable  to  meet  with  us  at  Gettysburg,  have,  at  considerable  trouble,  visited  the 
studio  in  New  York  ;  among  them,  Generals  Webb,  Hall,  Newton,  Hazard,  Sickles, 
Ward,  Brewster,  Berdan,  and  Gates,  and  Generals  Wilcox  and  Longstreet,  of  the 
Confederate  Army ;  the  latter  taking  great  interest  in  the  painting,  and  leaving 
me  a  fine  letter  indorsing  its  accuracy.  This  painting  has  been  designed  striffh/ 
in  conformity  to  the  directions  of  these  gentlemen,  given  on  the  field  for  that 
purpose,  and  from  the  Reports  of  the  Confederate  Commanders,  furnished  to  me 
by  the  Government. 

This  great  representative  Battle-scene  has  not  its  equal  in  America,  for  cor- 
rectness of  design  or  accuracy  of  execution.  Gibbon's  and  Hays's  Divisions  and 
the  Corps  Artillery,  occupy  the  immediate  foreground.  It  is  on  a  canvas  7i  x  20 
feet,  and  represents,  not  only  every  Regiment  engaged  at  that  portion  of  the  field, 
but  where  the  formation  of  the  ground  would  admit,  the  entire  left  wing  is  shown. 

It  presents  such  an  accurate  and  lifelike  portrait  of  the  country,  that  on  it 
the  movements  of  the  first  and  second  day's  operations  can  readily  be  traced. 
No  important  scene  has  been  screened  behind  large  foreground  figures,  or.  for  the 
want  of  a  knowledge  of  the  details,  hidden  by  convenient  puffs  of  smoke ;  but 
every  feature  of  this  gigantic  struggle  has,  in  its  proper  place,  been  woven  into  a 
symmetrical  whole. 

A  fine  steel  plate  is  also  to  be  engraved  of  this  picture,  which  will  be  accom- 
panied by  a  Key,  by  which  the  position  of  every  Regiment  and  Battery  can  be 
determined. 


PRICE     OF     ENGRAVINGS. 

Print,  $10,— Plain  Proof.  $i'5.— India  Proof,  $(50.— Artist  Proof  (limited  to 
•J(iu  copies),  $10(1. 

The  following  gentlemen,  intimately  identified  with  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg, 
and  exercising  the  highest  commands  at  the  battle,  kindly  furnished  me  these 
letters,  as  indorsements  to  an  application  to  examine  Confederate  Reports  of  the 
Battle  of  Gettysburg,  at  the  War  Department. 


"  PHILADELPHIA,  Xov.  S,  1S67. 
'•GENERAL  : — 

..****  Mr.  Bachelder  has  accumulated  :i  vast  amount  of  official  and  reliable  testimony  on  our 
side,  and  I  am  of  the  opinion  his  work  will  be  as  truthful  as  the  ilat.-i  in  his  possession  will  admit ;  I  am 
greatly  interested  in  his  application  being  granted,  and  would  most  earnestly  recommend  permission  being 
given  him  to  examine  the  Confederate  1U- ports,  in  ease  you  do  not  see  any  strong  reasons  preventing  it. 

••  Y<  ry  truly  yours, 

•'GEO.  G.  MEADE, 

"  Jfujor-d rnentl,   U.  A'.  A- 
"GENERAL  U.  S.  GRANT, 
"<&c.  W/n\  in/  interim." 

$p&~  PERMISSION  GRANTED. 


[Extract  of  a  letter  from  Major-Gcneral  Humphreys.  Chief  of  the  Corps  of  Engineers.] 

"  WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  Nov.  14, 18C7. 
"GENERAL: — 

..  #  *  *  fne  information  which  Mr.  Bachelder  has  collected  concerning  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg,  is 
extraordinary  in  amount  and  correctness.  So  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge,  there  is  no  battle  of  any  war 
respecting  which  so  many  truthful  accounts,  so  many  exact  details,  have  been  collected  and  compiled. 
From  every  source,  from  the  private  to  the  general  commanding  the  army,  facts  have  been  collected, 
and  where  discrepancies  were  found,  evidence  was  multiplied,  and  in  this  way  errors  have  been  dissipated. 
Mr.  Bachelder  has  peculiar  qualifications  for  the  task  he  has  undertaken,  and  has  devoted  four  years  to 
it.  *  *  * 

"A.  A.  HUMPHREYS, 

'•Jfajor-  General. 
"  GENERAL  U.  S.  GRANT. 

'•  Sec.  of  War,  ad  interim." 


DEATH    OF    PRIVATE    RIGGIN,  GUIDON    BEARER,   RICKETTS'    (PA)    BATTERY 


NOTE.— The  wood-cuts  interspersed  through  this  circular  have  been  engraved  to  illustrate  scenes  in  the 
Battle  of  Gettysburg,  and  with  many  others  will  appear  in  the  History  of  that  Battle. 


"THE  LAST  HOURS  OF  LINCOLN. 


ORIGIN    OF    THIS   HISTORICAL   PAINTING. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  President  of  tin-  United  States,  x\  a-  a--a-sinated  l>y  .Toiix  WII.KF.S  BOOTH,  on 
tin-  niuht  of  April  14.  !N>>.  at  Ford's  Theater,  \Va~hinirtoii.  I).  C.  This  night,  fraught  with  \vo<-  to  the 
|>eoples  of  two  continents,  sombcrcd  l>y  its  halo  of  diabolism,  must  forever  remain  the  Uolgotha  of  American 
history. 

At  the  threshold  of  the  temple  of  peac. — iho  Hi','h  Priest  w  is  stricken  down— and  the  great  heart 
whose  every  tlirot)  was  a  pulsation  of  love  for  his  country's  enemies,  was  robe<l  in  silence.  In  company 
with  Mrs.  LINCOLN.  Miss  HARRIS,  and  Major  UATIIBUNK.  Mr.  Lixroi.x  liad  sought  a  brief  respite  from  the 
iron  wheel  of  State  toil,  and  in  the  search,  through  the  medium  of  the  assassin's  bullet,  found  a  respite  for 
all  time. 

Immediately  after  the  fatal  shot  was  fired,  and  under  direction  of  Assistant-Surgeons  LEA LE  and 
TAFT.  he  was  removed  to  a  private  house,  and  placed  upon  a  couch  in  a  small  bedroom.  I:'»UERT  Lixn.i.x, 
General  TOIHI,  and  Dr.  TODD,  cousins  of  Mrs.  Lixroi.x.  and  other  personal  friends,  speedily  arrived.  His 
family  physician.  Dr.  STUNK,  and  Siin.von-Geiicral  HARXKS.  aceompani.-d  by  Asst. -Surgeon  General  THANK, 
were  in  early  attendance,  and  later  he  was  visited  by  Drs.  HALT,  an  1  LIEUERMAXX,  and  other  eminent  phy- 
sicians, all  of  whom  agreed  that  the  wound  was  unto  death.  The  bullet  had  entered  the  back  of  his  head, 
and  lodged  behind  the  right  eye. 

Mr.  LixroLN  was  visited  during  the  night  by  Ykv-Presideiit  .Jonxsox  and  the  entire  cabinet,  except 
Mr.  SKWAKD,  including  Secretaries  Md'rLLoi  n.  STAXTOX,  WELLF.S.  and  USHER.  Postmaster-General 
DKNNISON.  and  Attorney-General  SI-KED,  together  with  ASM. -Secretaries  FIELD.  KIKKKT,  and  OTTO.  There 
were  also  present.  Speaker  COI.FAX.  Chief-Justice  CARTTI;R.  Senator  WILSON.  Representatives  FARXSWORTII, 
AKXOI.II.  MAIWTOX,  and  UOLLINS.  Governor  OI.I.KSUY.  accompanied  by  Adjutant-General  HAYXIK.  Major 
HAI.  Generals  AfiER.  Mnu;s.  and  HAI.I.KI  K.  Kx-Govcriior  KAP.WKLU  Uev.  Dr.  GfULKV.  and  Commissioner 
FKEXCH.  Colonels  VINCKM-  I'KLOI  /.::  an  1  KrTiiKi'.i-or.i>,  and  Major  UOCKWELL.  Karly  in  the  niirht  Mrs. 
LIXCOI.X  sent  for  Mrs.  Senator  I):xo.v.  who  was  accompanied  by  her  sister  and  niece,  Mrs.  KI:;NKV  and 
daughter.  There  were  also  a  few  others  presc-nt  during  the  night,  but  never  more,  than  half  of  those 
represented  on  the  painting  at  any  one  time. 

15y  the  publicity  of  the  assassination  it  was  soon  known  throughout  the  city,  ami  thousands  crowded 
the  avenues  leading  to  the  house  where  the  President  lay. 

The  news  of  this  tragic  event  Hashed  with  the  speed  of  lightning  throughout  the  land.  From  Maine  to 
California  consternation  rciirncd.  and  feelings  of  surprise  and  grief  were  depicted  on  every  face.  The  great 
man  now  martyred  had  for  more  than  four  years  held  the  highest  place  in  the  gift  of  the  American  people, 
and  on  him  their  hopes  had  centered.  The  designer  of  the  painting  of 

"THE     LAST     HOURS     OF     LINCOLN," 

Jdo.  B.  BACIIELKEP..  arrived  in  Washington  on  the  iiiirhc  of  his  death,  and  being  impressed  with  the 
historic  importance  of  the  event,  at  once  determined  to  collect  such  materials  as  should  be  necessary  for  an 
historical  picture  i-ommemoratin^  that  sad  scene,  and  should  the  demand  warrant  it.  to  publishing  a  steel- 
plate  engraving  from  it.  The  design  for  the  painting  was  soon  completed,  and  arrangements  having  been 
made  with  I!I:AI>Y  it  Co..  Photographers,  as  >i.,.n  a>  the  remains  of  the  President  left  the  city  each  of  the 
persons  represented  were  visited,  and  at  their  convenience  wen-  jtoxed  and  photographed  in  the  position 
which  they  now  occupy  in  the  painting.  It  being  important  that  the  best  possible  original  should  be  had 
for  the  engraver's  use.  the-  design  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Ai.oxxn  CIIAI-KL.  Ksi|.,  tile  historical  painter. 
to  whose  genius  the  painting  is  to  lie  credited.  Much  of  its  completeness  is  due  to  the  kindness  and  atten- 
tion of  the  persons  represented  ;  as  all  cheerfullv  i:ave  their  time  for  frequent  sittings,  both  to  the  designer 
and  painter. 

NII  expense  has  been  spared  to  produce  a  work  worthy  the  scene  it  represents,  and  the  high  encomiums 
given  it  by  eminent  judges  is  the  be>t  proof  of  the  P 

To  publish  any  thing  now  .-hort  of  a  first-class  copy  of  such  a  painting  would  be  a  breach  of  confidence 
t.i  those  who  have  so  kindly  aided  in  its  production.  The  proprietor  has  therefore  decided  to  have  this 
picture,  enirraved  in  the  finest  style  of  line  and  stipple,  the  engraved  surface  of  tin-  plate  to  be  I>  \  '-'.I 
inches;  believing  that  nothing  short  of  a  ijuminr  n-nt-k  «f  art  will  meet  the  approval,  and  secure  th« 
patronage  of  the  American  people,  and  to  tho.-c  interested  the  proprietor  can  most  confidently  promise  a 
suitable  memento  of  their  departed  chief. 

The  cnirravini:  is  being  executed  by  II.  I>.  HAI.I..  Jr..  I'.sq..  the  eminent  ensrraver  upon  steel. 

PKICF.  (>F  F.NGUA  VINGS.—  Pnixis.  sl/i.OO;  PLAIN  Pi:m.rs.  $35. OU  :  INDIA  PROOFS. 
i?6O.OO  ;  AKTISTS  PuiM.is  ('limited  to  '.'0(1  copies  which  will  be  numbered  and  ,-ii':i..-<i  by  the  artist  and 
engraver').  S  1  <)().()(». 

A  beautiful  engraved  and  photographic  K<  ;i  to  the  Kiiirr-ivinir.  will  be  presented  to  the  subscribers.  It 
is  a  complete  picture  of  itself,  and  may  be  had  in  advance  l»j  x>i1>m'ril>n-*  only. 

JOHN  B.  BACHELDER.  PUBLISHER.  59  Setkman  Street.  Xen-   Y.,,-i: 


I     res    LINCOLN. 

I  rs.  LINCOLN 

3  ctPresJOHKSON 

4  aj  HATHBOHt 

5  r  ARNOLD.  M.C. 

b      M  Gen  OENNISOH. 

7  S«c  WELLES. 

8  Alt' Gen. SPEED 

9  D«    HALL 

10  Dr  LEIBERUANN 

II  Seer  USHER. 
!2SecT  M^COLIOCH. 


13  &OV.061ES6T 

3)  Col.PELOUSE. 

IS  Or  STOKE. 
16  SutJ.Cen  BARNES 

27  Rev  Or  GURLEY 

33G.n.  MEIGS 

18  Or.TODO 
IS  Ass!  Suit.  LEALE 
20  Ass'Sur^.TAFT. 
21  Ass'  Sec'   OTTO 

30  Maj.  FRENCH 
31  Gen  AUGER 
32  Col    VINCENT 
33  Gen  HALLECK 

43  Mr    ROLLINS.   M 
44  Gen.  MARSTON.  M 

45  Mrs.  HI  N  NE  Y 

23  Sen.  SUMMER. 
24  Sut£.  CRANE. 

35  Col   RUTHERFORD 
36  A«s'SecTECKERT. 

47  Miss    HARR  IS 

EF    SAYINGS    OF    EMINENT     M.EN. 


Sl'KiJKoN-GENBRAI.'s    OyKICE.  ( 

WASHINGTON  CITY,  March  20.  I>.(i7.  ) 

Col.    J.    B.    BAOIIF.LnF.R. 

SIR: — The  picture  of  "The  Last  Hours  of  Lincoln."  painted  by  Alonzo  Chappel  from  your  design,  pre- 
Rents,  witli  remarkable  fidelity,  the  portraits  of  those  in  attendance  at  various  times  during  the  niirht  of 
A|iril  14,  1865,  preserving  truthfully  the  principal  features  of  that  most  sad  event. 

Very  respectfully  yours. 
.1.  K.  BARNES.  Surijeon-licnei-al  ('.  X  .1..  llr,-r,t  Miijor-Generttt. 


K  is  Cfrtaiuly  a  work  of  great  interest  and  merit.  I  liavc  looked  upon  it  with  the  liveliest  satisfaction 
on  account  of  its  singularly  graphic  delineation  of  the  actual  scene  as  myself  beheld  it,  and  ulsti  because 
the  likenesses  of  most  of  the  distinguished  persons  presented  by  the  painting  seem  to  rue  to  lie  very 
accurate  and  striking.  P.  D.  GURLKV,  Pastor  of  the  A*.  Y.  Ace.  I'rtx.  Church. 


I  cheerfully  bear  testimony  to  the  accuracy  of  the.   Portraits  of  the  persons   present   on  that   nielan 
"fcholy  occasion,  and  especially  that  of  the  martyred  President. 

W.  T.  OTTO.  At»istant  Secretary  of  th*  Interior . 


It  gives  me  pleasure  to  testify  to  tlie  accuracy  with  which  you  have  represented  the  principal  features 
of  the  scene  in  question,  and  to  the  fidelity  ot  the  portraits  which  you  have  introduced.  You  have  been 
especially  successful  in  the  likeness  of  President  Lincoln.  JOHN  HAY, 

Brevet  Colonel.  fnfinnrJij  A.  D,  C.  to  President  Lincoln. 

The  truthful  likeness  of  President  Lincoln,  the  fidelity  of  the  portraits  of  those  present  on  that  most 
mournful  night,  and  the  excellent  grouping  of  the  figures,  render  this  picture  peculiarly  valuable  in  an  his- 
torical point  of  view,  apart  trom  its  merits  as  a  work  ot  art. 

C.  H.  CRANE,  Asuintant  Kuryeon-deticnil  I'.  N.  Ann;/. 


Without  possessing  a  critical  capacity  for  judgment,!  can  say.  in  all  sincerity,  that  the  painting,  us  a 
whole,  is  faithful  to  the  scene  of  the  death-chamber  on  that  eventful  night,  and  impressively  truthful  in 
its  portraiture.  1).  K.  ('AKTTFU:,  (.'kief-Justice. 

g3?°  The  above  gentlemen' visited  President  Lincoln  during  his  hist  hours,  and  uiv  re-presented  in 
the  painting. 


It  is  admirable  as  :i  picture,  and  of  great  value  for  the  fidelity  of  the  portraits. 

A    A.  HUMPHREYS,  Major-General. 

DEAR  SIR:— Permit  me  to  thank  you  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  luxury  of  grief  afforded  me  in  the  view- 
ing of  the  great  picture  commemorating  "Tlie  Last  Hours  of  Lincoln."  It  is  deserving  of  great  praise.  If 
it  has  a  fault,  it  is  its  high  colorini:.  As  I  have  personally  known  nearly  all  the  forty  odd  persons  who 
appear  in  it,  I  can  speak  with  confidence  of  the  truthfulness  of  the  likenesses. 

F.   E.   SPINNER,  Treasurer  United  State*. 

The  majority  of  the  portraits  could   hardly  be  improved. 

O.  O.   HOWARD,  Jfujor-GenernJ. 

I  know  personally  a  large  majority  of  the  persons  represented,  and  take  pleasure  in  bearing  my  testimony 
to  the  singular  fidelity  of  their  portraits.  IRA  HARRIS,  United  /State*  Senator. 

KXTKACT  FUOM   A   CUITICISM. 

[f'rtmi    tin-    H"< Islington  Snn(l<ty    It?r<iJ<l.} 


WASHINGTON,  March  31,  1S6T. 

A  great  picture  has  been  designed  of  the  "  Lnst  Hours  of  Abraham  Lincoln."  The  designer  is  Mr.  John 
B.  Bachelder.  the  painter  Alonzo  Chappel.  *  *  The  value  of  such  a  picture  of  such  a  scene  is  enormous, 
and  of  a  kind  to  ever  increase  with  time,  *  *  Looking  like  himself,  from  his  finger-nails  to  his  hard, 
protruding  lip,  Stanton,  with  paper  and  pencil  in  hand,  and  uplifted  forefinger,  is  giving  instructions  to  the 
soldierly  General  Auger,  the  t'.ien  Military  Commander  of  the  District,  *  *  Portraits  so  minutely  like 
I  have  never  seen,  even  from  the  brush  of  Elliot.  *  *  * 

The  grandeur  in  the  face  of  Lincoln,  is  grand  indeed.  The  cold  hues  of  death  are  warmed  to  tho  eye  by 
die  red  rays  of  a  candle  held  over  him.  and  the  flickering  flare  causing  a  Kcmhramlt-likc  clfeet.  is  very 
felicitously  managed.  The  eye  rests  in  love  and  pity  on  it,  turning  from  those  around  impatiently.  *  *  * 

McCulloch  who  turns  from  the  scene,  and  Johnson  who  sits  in  the  left  foreground,  are  wonderfully  like. 
As  is  the  erect  Dennison  beyond  them ;  and  Meigs,  with  his  hand  resting  on  the  door-post,  where  he  stood 
to  prevent  disturbing  entrances;  Dr.  Stone  and  Surgeon-General  Barnes,  General  Todd,  Judge  Otto. 
Suuiner,  Farnsworth,  Speaker  Collhx,  nnd  Governor  Oglcsby,  are  looking  down  on  the  face  of  Lincoln  with 
an  expression  of  respectful  concern.  *  *  *  Judge  Carttcr  and  Kx-Govcrnor  Farwell  stand  in  front  of 
Meigs,  forming  the  right  foreground  of  the  picture ;  they  are  given  in  profile  and  seem  conversing. 

The  greatness  of  the  picture  lies  in  its  correct  transcription  of  an  actual  scene  nnd  perfect  portraiture 
of  American  men.  It  is  just  such  a  wrrk  as,  above  all  others,  should  be  Americanjiroperty,  for  if  ever 
there  w:is  a  Xat-ioiinl  picture,  this  is  one.  Ai:r. 


A  OVERT  IS  1-:  ME  NT. 


SKETCH   OF    THE    LIFE   OF    ABRAHAM     LINCOLN. 

i  »  R  i  c  i ; . 

PEOIM,K'S  EDITION-.  8ro.  Steel  Portrait.  Cloth  *l..~>n 

A  FINK  EDITION.  8vo.  Proof  Portrait.  Fine  binding, 

leveled  boards,  Levant  cloth,  gilt  edges 3.00 

MKMOIUAL  EDITION.  On  heavy  toned  paper,  large  margin. 

India    Proof    Portrait.     Morocco,   Antique,   gilt    edges....      7.00 

I  am  prepared  to  supply  the  Trade  with  the 

"SKETCH  of  theLIFEof  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,"  and  the  "  PORTRAIT  of  LINCOLN," 

ON      LIBERAL,      T  E  R  M  S  . 


My  other  publications  are  sold  exclusively  by  Subscription,  including 
THE  STEEL  ENGRAVING  OF 

"  THE    LAST    WOURS    OP    LINCOLN  ;" 
THE  ISOMKTHK  A  i.   I)i:.\\vix<;   OF 

•  •THE    PETTYSBURG    BATTLE-FIELD;" 

'•THE    HISTORY    OF    THE   RATTLE    OF  PETTYSBURG." 
THE  STEEL  EX<;KAVIX<;  OF 

"THE    BATTLE    OF    PETTYSBURG;"     (^ONGSTREET'S   REPULSE.) 

AND  TIIK  STKKI.   K.\<;I:AVIN<;S  OF  THE  DIFFERENT 

•'  EPISODES    OF    THE    BATTLE    OF    PETTYSBURG." 

Each  of  the  latter  forming  a  fine  business  opportunity  for  a  man  of  energy,  who  has  a 
small  amount  of  capital,  whidi  he  would  invest  with  a  certainty  of  liberal  returns. 

To  CAN\  ASSEHS  of  EXPERIENCE,  having  the  CAPITAL  and  BI/SIXESS  CAPACITY  to  manage 
the  canvass  of  STATES.  COUNTIES,  or  CITIES,  I  can  offer  superior  inducements.  (See  sep- 
arate notices  of  subjects.)  Orders  received  for  either  of  the  above  at  the  office  of 
publication. 

From  my  intimate  business  relations  with  the  BEST  PAINTERS,  DESIGNERS.  STEEL  EX- 
GRAVERS,  WOOD  EXC;RAVI:RS.  and  hrnmiiR  VIZIERS,  in  this  City,  I  am  prepared  to  receive 
orders  from  my  patrons,  and  have  them  executed  under  my  immediate  superintendence,  in 
any  stylo  required. 

JOHN     IJ.     9:  \<   II  I   l.l»l  1C.    Publisher, 

59  BEEKMAN  ST.,  NEW  YORK. 


* 


